


You Were a Kindness

by utsu



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Humor, Barebacking, Explicit Language, Future Fic, Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Build, Tattoos, Trans Female Character - Sakurai Ryou, aomine has no fashion sense at all and i mean AT ALL, tattoo artist aomine and world-famous model kise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-04 17:14:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 140,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3075212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/utsu/pseuds/utsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Kise had first met Aomine, he’d seemed a dark tempestuous gale perpetually on the cusp of controlled and feral, moments away from bursting at the seams. The only visible brightness in him had been the ink stained into his skin, nearly fluorescent trails winding up his arms and leading into the recesses of his collarbones and down over his chest and abdomen. Imayoshi always said that the two of them standing beside one another was a clichéd clash of elements—light and dark, sun and moon.</p><p>But to look at Aomine and see anything other than the incomprehensible depths of white-hot light and power that constitute the sun is ludicrous.</p><p>Aomine is the sun and Kise wants nothing more than to burn beside him until the end of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_I was in a fog, I didn't notice everything_  
_Was coming all apart inside of me_  
_There wasn't any way for anyone to settle in_  
_You made a slow disaster out of me_

 

Kise Ryouta is lost.

He’d travelled all over the world, spent months in the largest cities known to humankind, navigated them like an expert, found his destinations without much trouble, but the moment he sets foot into Seattle he can’t tell which way he’s even come from. He’s surrounded by mountains that blot out the corners of the world and make him feel closed in but not claustrophobic, not when he’s spent the majority of his life in cities like Tokyo and New York, where every corner has buildings reaching up into the sky, scraping through the clouds to kiss the atmosphere, cutting down the world to a few blocks of right angle after right angle after right angle.

The mood of Seattle makes his skin prickle, his blood heat. It’s a comfortable sensation, one he’s sure he would’ve taken the moment to bask in if he hadn’t been walking down a dark road lit only by a few weak streetlights and the glow from the surrounding buildings, most of which are still open and thriving, if the lines curling around each corner are anything to go off of. Most of them seem to be bars or clubs, which only serves to frustrate Kise further since he’s looking for his  _hotel_. The concierge at the airport, the one who’d looked at Kise’s black and white pinstriped jeans and loose purple tank top with a quirked brow, had given him extensive directions to his hotel and Kise’s certain he has them memorized correctly and yet, here he stands; shivering and exhausted from the ten-hour flight he’s just taken from London. Kise takes a moment to lean back against the brick building he’s loitering in front of, bringing his hands up to blow hot air into them, trying to regain feeling in his fingertips.

It isn’t that he’s freezing—he’s experienced much colder winters in other, far more aggressively polar places—but he is bone-weary and exhausted and maybe a little raw, considering what he’s coming from. He won’t let himself dwell on it, not even now when he is almost,  _almost_  too tired to care about pitying himself. He has an amazing life, is extremely privileged to be able to travel the world for work and to love what he’s doing, every second of it. He’s in magazines and on talk shows and has even starred in a movie here and there, his face plastered all over the media in almost every country. He has friends back home who are supportive and willing to wait for him, willing to listen to him through a screen or a phone rather than have him there in arm’s reach. He has the best manager in the business and the most efficient and supportive team behind him. He is healthy and he is young and he is thriving.

He is also so incredibly, alarmingly alone.

He’s so famous that it‘s almost impossible for him not to be recognized in any random place, to be surrounded by fans almost every day of his life. He’s held people’s babies before, signed strange places of human anatomy at the insistence of various fans, had so many pictures added to his blog of him posing with fans at any such event that he isn’t even sure the blog really belongs to him alone anymore, and can’t buy a coffee without having to sign autographs. His life is not his own anymore, and yet he has no one to share it with. He doesn’t know whether to laugh at the irony or to cry.

Mostly, he laughs. He’s always been a positive person, optimistic and open to any and every possibility before having to quit, to give up or to give in. It’s what makes him so appealing to others, what makes it so soothing to be in his presence. He makes people feel light, like just by soaking up his personality, his words, his smiles, they can make it through the day with a little more strength than they’ve previously thought—unconsciously aiding, like the vitamin D that comes down in heated rays from the sun. Of course there are people who dislike him, called him a playboy, someone naïve and self-centered and a joke, but he’s fine with that. He lets it slide over his head, down his shoulders, off his back, and just puts more of himself into loving those who have supported him and those who continue to, so that he can be better for them. He wants to be better for himself, too.

But he is still human, something that the world at large seems to forget, and he isn’t going to encourage them seeing this side of him, the one that causes him to run a hand shakily over his features, to drag down his mouth and off his trembling lips, coming away wet. The side of him that doesn’t stand tall with shoulders thrust back and head cocked playfully, his public persona, the one that is an unbreakable shield of joy and passion and determination, but the one that allows the solid and cutting surface of jagged brick behind his back to support his tall frame, to keep him from curling in on himself on the ground.

The lines leading into bars around him are jittering like night bugs, a certain music that is neither annoying nor soothing, but constant and telltale of secrets and mistakes. He glances over and watches the masses of colors thrive together, the ladies in their party dresses and the men with half-unbuttoned tops. He looks back down at his own outfit and snorts, shaking his head slightly before tilting back, letting the edge of a brick hitch under the back of his skull, letting his eyes seep shut for just a moment, just one moment to collect himself.

“Are…are you all right?”

Kise takes one more moment to breathe, sucking in the cold night air through flared nostrils before looking down at the concerned stranger. He wonders if this is the moment where he will be recognized, where he’ll have to smile and flash bright eyes and flaunt his confident body language, assembling his armor like any good soldier facing a battle should. But instead of meeting eyes that are knowing and excited if not nervous, instead he gets a pair that very clearly judge him and his life choices. He watches as one perfectly sculpted pink brow ticks up, almost in question, before she reaches a hand out to him, even though he’s not on the ground, even though he doesn’t need help up. Her eyes are intuitive, intelligent, and he thinks maybe they know that even though he’s still standing he’s also on his last leg.

“Oh yeah, I’m okay, just resting. A little lost,” he adds as an afterthought, eyes flickering over her bare arm, one that is covered entirely in black and grayscale tattoos. She’s a tall woman and she’s got curves that would make any of the models he works with dizzy, with a curl to the edges of her lips that lets him know she knows it. She’s wearing a red leather skirt up to her waist with an orange blouse tucked in, a pair of heeled boots coming up just below her knees. She looks like a gumball princess and Kise instantly wants to raid her closet, see if any of her clothes might fit him, wonders whether or not she’d ever agree to going shopping with him, sharing some of her candy-queen fashion sense with him so he can recreate a look that might scrape the surface of how good she looks.

“Your outfit is incredible!” he laughs, thinking he might sound a little crazy, considering. But she takes it all in stride, literally, tucking his hand up into hers and pulling him along behind her. She looks over her shoulder, long pink hair swishing over her tailbone.

“Thanks. I’m Momoi Satsuki. Hungry?” she asks, and he doesn’t really think he has a choice in the matter, considering her hand is tight around his and he doesn’t have a clue where he’s going anyways. There is something about her, though, that makes all those inherent warning bells in his head stay silent, something that assures him that she isn’t dangerous. At least, not to him, not in any way he’ll have to worry about just yet. He follows after her for just a block or so, still glancing around to take in his surroundings, finding that the street they turn onto, just a corner away from all the main bars and clubs, is much better lit and has a calming quiet to it where only the crickets make a dent in the sound.

They come up to a stretch of buildings, all made from the same rustic red brick, and pull to a stop in front of what appears to be a bakery. The sign out front is bright in the darkness, though Kise won’t call it neon, and simply reads: The Bakery. Kise had to smile at that, objectively appreciating the simplicity of the shop. It’s difficult to see inside given that the windows are tinted and covered in some artsy goods he can’t distinguish from outside, but that doesn’t stop Kise from trying to see past them into the mysteriously interesting shop. Momoi grins, looking up and over at him before holding the door open for him, listening as the bell trills at their entrance.

Even though it is close to midnight and Kise himself is exhausted, the inside of the bakery is a thriving mass of movement and music and  _dancing_. Dancing! Kise’s eyes light up at the sight, his energy slowly rekindling and bubbling up into a surprised laugh as he glances from the booth style tables alongside the right wall, to the mass of people dancing in the center of the room, to the classic glass display and cash register, with a door leading back to where Kise guesses the magic happens. There is a shoddy sign nailed to the wall above the doorframe that reads  _Ball is Life_  and has Kise laughing out loud, bringing one hand up to tuck some of his hair behind his ear, wanting to take in and memorize every detail.

He is absolutely enamored with the place. He can honestly say that he has never seen a bakery or a restaurant that can match this one’s level of individuality and he’s blown away by how the very air feels warm and euphoric. There’s actually a jukebox in the corner, a genuine jukebox, and Kise knows the song playing is “What Makes a Good Man” by The Heavy, and if his bones hadn’t already been screaming in agony he knows without a doubt he would’ve walked straight into the center of the room and begun to dance.

Momoi’s hand slips out from his as she walks into the hive of dancers, turning to smirk and wink at him over her shoulder before heading through everyone. He’s still taking in the details of the shop; the paintings he can now see taped to the front windows, which have him shaking his head in amazement; amazed that a shop owner would actually plaster random paintings all over the front setup, so much so that it is impossible to see inside. Isn’t that bad for business? And it isn’t like there’s even a pattern between the pieces! There is no rhyme or reason; they seem to be an assortment chosen at random or by different people, Kise isn’t quite sure. He’d have to really study them to find a pattern and with some time he’s sure that he can come up with the correct deduction, but right now he’s too distracted by the knickknacks scattered across the shelves lining the walls.

There is a lot of basketball paraphernalia, signed jerseys and basketballs and—is that—a signed pair of underwear. Kise can’t help himself, he walks over to the display and lets out a breathy laugh when he sees Shaq’s signature on the groin with an additional smiley face. Kise is still staring at the framed underwear, shaking his head, when he feels someone’s gaze on the back of his head, pointed and deliberate enough to make him turn. He catches Momoi’s bright eyes as she dips her head, clearly calling him over to her. She’s standing next to a tower of a man with a shocking mop of two-tone red hair, brighter on top than on bottom. There is a ring through the right side of his lip and four to match in his ears, with one stud in the helix of his right ear. His shoulders and chest are wide and taper down into a thin waist that is hidden away behind an apron that has  _Lunch Time Rush_  sewn crudely into the material in red thread. Kise expects his expression to be foreboding, dangerous, but when he turns to glance over at Kise he is openly, genuinely welcoming.

Kise heads over towards the two, ducking his head slightly in greeting and introducing himself to the taller man. When their hands meet in a shake, Kise twitches at how tightly the other grips his hand, though he’s certain that there had been no real intent to cause harm. The firmness of the grip is especially surprising given that Kise himself is a strong guy, built fairly large with cords of muscle lining his frame; yet even still the redhead’s grip is something to marvel over. When the big man speaks, his voice is loud and boisterous enough to rake over the music, his grin infectious.

“I’m Kagami Taiga! Nice pants. I own this place,” he speaks with an intangible sort of airy confidence he doesn’t even seem to have awareness of, even whilst his expression remains deferential. Momoi smacks his arm and corrects him with a roll of her eyes.

“You mean  _Tetsuya_ owns this place. You just bake here. And yeah, those pants  _are_  hot.” All three of them seem to collectively look down at Kise’s pinstriped jeans, both parts thoughtful and appreciative. Kise grins, ducking his head in a silent yet polite thank you, his golden hair falling forward with a rush.

“What do you mean  _just bake here_?” Kagami growls, an afterthought as he turns fiery eyes down at Momoi. She merely crosses her ink-sleeved arms over her chest, cocking her hip and resting her weight on it in such a natural way Kise knows in an instant that this is a recurring theme between the two of them.

“You fucking love my muffins!” Kagami shouts, gritting his teeth, eyes glaring. The jukebox shifts mid-song and changes to something new-age and popular and Kise almost starts to bob his head with the beat when Kagami turns instantly to the side of the room the jukebox is on, hands gripping his apron sharply.

“Who the  _fuck_  interrupted The Veronicas?  _Untouched_ is my jam!”

Kise watches his eyes search the room with an amusing but entirely legitimate determination in finding the culprit; he growls under his breath, shaking his head slowly and bringing one hand up to jab two fingers towards his eyes and back at someone across the room, as if to say  _you’re on my list now, buddy_. Kise’s laughing, unable to hold back when Kagami has such a fun personality; he feels like he’s carbonated with bubbles in his chest trying to lift him up into the air. Kagami’s brand of crotchety ad ridiculousness is endearing as hell and Kise knows instantly that they are definitely going to get along.

“Is admitting that really okay?” Momoi asks, a distinctly mischievous gleam in her eyes. Kise barks out another laugh without even really meaning too, instantly getting her meaning, but Kagami only seems resolute and firm in protecting his love for the song. Kise finds himself agreeing with the taller of the two, and immediately they’re in cahoots with one another discussing which underrated pop bands they listen to incessantly. By the time Kise glances at his phone and sees that it’s a little past one in the morning, he’s already exchanged numbers with Kagami (with a promise to make the big man a playlist for one in return), purchased a muffin at random from behind the casing, and some of the dancers had waved goodbye to Kagami before heading out. The place is still vibrating with life and there are couples making out in corners and booths and people dancing with untiring passion and it seems like the place will never shut down.

“Are you guys open twenty four hours?” he asks, letting his curiosity get the best of him as he finishes off his muffin. Momoi had been dancing for the last half hour but now she’s heading back towards them, muttering something about needing to get back to work. Kagami nods sternly in her direction and she rolls her eyes, perching her hip against the glass display next to Kise and grinning down at him like she has a secret and he‘d want to know it. He glances at her, twice, a little concerned, but then Kagami is answering him and he doesn’t want to be rude, so he lets Momoi keep her secret.

Kagami’s rambling at his side, saying, “Nah, we close at two but we always have to kick people out of here because apparently they think we don’t ever close. Usually when I unplug the jukebox they get the picture but damned if there aren’t snarky kids who don’t wanna go back home.”

“Once Kagami threatens not to make their favorite pastry for them, though, they leave right away.” Momoi grins, turning to lean on her crossed elbows on the counter, pushing her cleavage up. Kagami doesn’t even seem to notice, nodding his head and carding a hand through his wild hair. There’s baking powder on his neck and all over his hands and his apron is filthy but somehow it all fits his persona so well that after a few moments with him Kise doesn’t even seem to notice it anymore.

He feels strain in his tailbone and remembers that he’s  _exhausted_ , and the fact that he’s been having such a good time that he’d actually forgotten is incredible to him. He gets up from his perch and stretches, slowly, carefully, bringing his arms up and over his head and groaning for good measure. Momoi eyes him like a side-dish she hadn’t ordered but is definitely willing to take, and Kagami just raises a brow at him, rubbing his powdered hands together as if he thought that was a viable option for getting them clean.

“Well, I really should be off. I have a meeting early tomorrow morning. Um, could either of you point me in the direction of my hotel? Before Momocchi found me on the street, I’d been pretty…completely lost.” He shrugs, flushing slightly. Kagami snorts and heads in to the back while Momoi playfully smacks his arm and nods, asking for the name of the place. As it turns out, she’s staying with a friend that lives only a block from there, someone named Riko that makes Momoi’s cheeks flush simply by saying their name. Kise doesn’t ask her about it, he’s too tired to put much into the conversation and that wouldn’t be fair to her, not when he really  _is_  interested and does want to know. He steels himself to a promise of asking her at their planned lunch date some time in the week, one she had finagled out of him and he is going to have to double check that he has time for. He really hopes that he does.

And yet when they start walking to his hotel, Momoi makes the jump herself and starts to tell him about Riko without any push from him. Kise is naturally intuitive and he knows fairly quickly that Momoi is in love with the girl, that it’s complicated and that Momoi is planning things. They’re holding hands again—Momoi confesses that she really likes boys’ hands, especially big hands, though she is so completely batting for the other team—and he honestly doesn’t mind. As someone whom identifies as bisexual and generally enjoys holding hands, regardless, he is content to walk hand-in-hand with his newfound friend. Plus, he can’t remember the last time that someone had held his hand just for the sake of holding his hand, rather than it being a photoshoot or an admirer or someone who wanted facets of him but not all.

Momoi fills the space between them with idle chatter, warm and welcoming and with an astute intelligence to her words that Kise finds refreshing. She is cautious with the information she offers, meticulous in which details she feels she wants to give him. It’s clear that she likes him, that they are going to be friends, but even still she’s protective of her privacy and her feelings. Kise finds himself admiring her more and more as she speaks and he listens, and even though he’d been worried that he was too tired to do the conversation justice, he finds that having someone confide in him wakes him up in a way he hasn’t been in years. He’s attentive and empathetic and he feels for her, he really does, especially when she hints, very subtly, that her love is unrequited. If it had been anyone else, Kise is pretty sure they wouldn’t have caught that much. But he has an eye for detail, in any regard, and it is always on the lookout.

When they reach his hotel and he sees the concierge working the nightshift make eye contact with him, clearly prepared to tell him his room and his belongings have been brought up already, he pauses and turns to face Momoi. She’s smiling up at him, cheeks flushed from the cold of the night as well as what Kise presumes is the effect of talking about her paramour. The air between them is light and liberating, a kind of friendship they’ve just formed but which already feels inherently easy. Kise reaches out and pulls her in close, rubbing a comforting hand across her back and giving her cheek a chaste kiss. She nestles into his chest before pulling away, smirking at him with her head tilted, a conspiratorial look in her eye—the same as he’d seen back in The Bakery. He’s about to ask about it, but she’s already backing off, still smirking, lifting a hand to wave.

“Thanks for listening to me chatter,” she says, no hint of embarrassment or guilt in her words. That same admiration he felt for her earlier rises up again and settles warmly in his chest. “Can’t wait for lunch, make sure you make time for me!” and then she’s flouncing away, her boots scuffing once against the pavement as she hurries off. At her quickened pace, Kise remembers that she’d said she still has work to do. Shaking his head and wondering how many places around here have late-night-to-early-morning shifts, he turns into his hotel, smiling.

 

✧

 

Other than the fact that Kise’s meeting with his manager and prospective clients for the next few months begins at six in the morning and he has to wake up earlier than God to make it to the office (which he finds easily, thank you very much), his morning is going swimmingly. The weather is a little chilly but he’s dressed appropriately this time in black ripped skinny jeans, a lavender sweater with a gray kitten on it, and a navy blue scarf wrapped around his neck. His worn combat boots give the look a little edge, considering he has a kitten on his chest and if you look closely enough you can see that his socks are a pattern of koalas in black stitching. The client had thought he was extraordinary and had signed him without much hesitation, but Kise honestly hadn’t been surprised.

He isn’t arrogant, not usually, but he  _is_  confident. He’d made a lot of friends in his industry, powerful, important friends. And as such, he has amazing references and a lot of promise and on top of it all he is easy to work with, a charming and capable young man. His manager, Kobori Koji, had been pleased enough to let him cancel their consultation post-meeting so that he could meet with Momoi and he’d been so happy about the news that he gets her a pastry with her sandwich before she even arrives. When she does, Kise studies her outfit again, eyebrows hitching up in appreciation.

She has chunky black heels on with black tights cut off at her ankles, a dress that falls in sharp edges around her knees in a pale shade of blue and a torn and ripped leather jacket thrown haphazardly over her shoulders. Her hair is French-braided down her back with a small pouf in front, her make-up sweet and warm with the contrast of sharp winged liner, and a single, stark hickey at the base of her throat. Kise’s brows rise even higher.

She rolls her eyes as she throws herself into her seat, immediately holding up the pastry he’d bought her in thanks before biting into it. She rolls the sweet crunch of it around in her mouth before swallowing, bringing those big eyes back on him and smiling.

“So,” he says, falling seamlessly into her timeline. She has him wrapped around her little finger already and he hasn’t even known her for a week; he is decidedly a little too pleased with about this.

They talk and eat and laugh and Kise realizes how lucky this trip is turning out to be, even though he had originally been dreading it. Coming from somewhere like London all the way to a town like Seattle had seemed like too much of a drastic change for him all in the span of a day and a half. But now he’s realizing just how lucky, how blessed he had been to pause on that street corner, to stumble across this bombshell’s path. She’s an amazing person, an amazing friend, and they got along so well it’s hard to believe that they hadn’t grown up together. They speak like old friends; touch and bond like old friends, utterly comfortable with one another. Momoi is not a hands-on kind of person, she doesn’t breach your personal space until she thinks she has to and Kise knows that she does so because she wants the same in return.

She’s just concluding her story about her actual childhood friend, someone who she speaks about with a grumpy, exasperated sort of fondness that charms Kise, telling him some absurd story regarding a pre-teen underground temporary-tattoo trading circle. Momoi had apparently been the brains and her friend had been both the brawn and the pusher. She explains how they’d gotten in trouble when some older kids found out about it and, of course, wanted to take over just for the hell of it. He snorts, watching her eyes flicker and light up at the memory as she retells it, wincing when she gets to the part where her childhood friend beats the snot out of all three of the older kids with only a broken nose and some bruises over his ribs to show for it.

Kise finds himself wondering about her friend, someone who at eleven had stood up to three fifteen year olds for the sake of protecting his best friend regardless of the consequences, and realizes that he would very much like to meet him. But there is something in Momoi’s eyes as her voice trails off, something jaded and sharp and distracting that has him deciding it’s worth the risk of stepping over a minor boundary in order to try to help her ease the pain shining in her eyes.

He’s fairly certain that the pain is related to the mark on her neck, because she won’t stop touching it; her fingertips unconsciously trails over it, feeling the slightly raised skin, pressing lightly until he imagines it hurts a little. The tone of their conversation has been upbeat and happy and everything her eyes aren’t, so when Kise broaches the topic he tries to make it a blend of amusement and sincerity, trying to get across to her that he’s opening the conversation, but wants her to have the power to control it.

“You know, I do like the accessory, but I’m afraid to ask how much it cost.” He doesn’t phrase it as the question it is, doesn’t want to push too hard too fast if she isn’t ready to tell—or if she doesn’t feel comfortable tell him at all. He’s still testing the boundaries with her, isn’t really used to discussing intimate matters with friends. Since becoming a model, his friendships have mostly been superficial and wow, he is so not going to get back into reminding himself of how alone he is. Not when he has a friend right in front of him, happy to be here with him, happy to hear about him and talk to him and just be with him in the moment. Especially not when he’s trying to comfort her, to get to the bottom of the shadows in her eyes.

Momoi doesn’t jump, but it’s a close thing. Her eyes slot to his and away in an instant, and both of them become starkly aware of how she has been absentmindedly tracing the edges of the mark. She drops her hand back to her lap with all the airiness of someone whose been caught but is pretending not to have been. Her smile is real when it lifts the corner of her lips, but her eyes are still shuttered.

“Oh,” she hums, flipping one hand irrelevantly. “It cost a little more than I was expecting, but nothing I haven’t made back up before.” And that’s all she offers on the subject, though she does give him an appraising, grateful glance that tells him he hasn’t overstepped his boundaries and that she appreciates his concern. She reaches forward and grasps his hand, squeezing it just once before pulling away, and Kise thinks how wrong it is that while trying to comfort her after she’d been rejected for the nth time from the person she loves, she was the one who reached out to comfort him.

Kise swallows, feels the beginnings of moisture in his eyes and curses himself for being such a sap. He refuses to cry in front of her, even if it’s  _for_  her. Instead, he pushes down the pain he feels at knowing that she’s hurting, that that mark is a reminder that something had been a mistake last night rather than a promise as it should have been, and bounces the conversation back to happier topics. Like dancing.

He sits up a little straighter, rests his chin on his fist and says, “Okay, you have to tell me: how did The Bakery become some sort of dance-station bakery joint? I’ve been all over the world and I’ve never seen a place like it.”

Momoi grins. “Maybe you just weren’t looking in the right places,” she says, but she smiles like she knows The Bakery is unique and she’s proud of it as she starts explaining how it came to be and how it had grown and changed. Kise is still a little confused about her involvement, considering that she doesn’t work there. He’s been thinking about it throughout the week, just a bit, and has concluded that as a friend of Kagami’s, she goes to The Bakery in order to relax. But for some reason that just feels wrong, incomplete.

She knows about his career, had gotten it all out of him and told him that yes, she had recognized him and yes, people at The Bakery had too, but that he’d been so star-struck by the place he hadn’t even really noticed. He adores her even more for the fact that she hadn’t freaked out all over him, simply because it’s nice to just be treated as an ordinary person sometimes. He’d shared that much with her, actually, and she’d just shrugged, telling him that in her line of work it wasn’t rare to come across famous people who knew other famous people.  _That_  had kindled his curiosity, his mind instantly jumping to different conclusions, his curiosity eating him up inside as he wondered if she was in the movie business or maybe photography. But then she’d smirked and held her arms up, showcasing all of her black and gray tattoos, had tucked her hair behind her ears and tilted her head so that he could see twin buffalo bone spirals piercing her earlobes and three steel rings through the cartilage shell of her left ear.

Once he’d understood that,  _holy shit_ , she’s a tattoo artist and a professional piercer, he had flung about a hundred different questions at her and maybe, possibly flailed all over her at the concession. He still feels a little embarrassed, because he knows how it feels to be on the receiving end of such curiosity and approbation, but he can’t help it. He’s always been a little fascinated with tattoos and piercings, has a lone hoop through his left earlobe because regardless of his manager’s approval, he’d  _had_  to have it. Plus, it holds sentimental value—when his mom had still been alive, she’d had a fondness for gently tugging at his left earlobe. After she passed on, he’d gotten the hoop to commemorate the gesture, eternalizing it with a steel circle, something that has no end and no beginning.

Even still, Kobori puts his foot down at tattoos, though. Kise has a lot of photoshoots topless, and since coming to America, he’s stripped down a lot more than that for a pretty picture. That does not, however, put a damper on his desire to have ink sketched into his skin. He has  _dreams_  about it.

Momoi finishes explaining the brief but completely intriguing history of The Bakery and Kise finds himself, unsurprisingly, even more charmed by the place. And that’s even without factoring in just how good the muffins are, because it they are  _incredible_. Kagami’s baking skills rival that of some incredibly famous cities around the world and Kise is more than delighted to have found it here, in the States, where he seems to have more work than ever. Kagami is truly a master at his craft, Kise will give him that. He’s sure if he were to tell Kagami this, the man would just give a battle cry and possibly offer a free pastry, Kise’s choice, so that is definitely a thing that Kise is thinking about doing. He may be filthy rich, but he still appreciates being doted on, especially if it comes from someone he can call a friend.

“Does Kagamicchi have any tattoos?” he wonders, sipping his blended Chai. Momoi blows on her hot chocolate and nods her head, the stray hairs around her face almost falling into her cup.

She lifts a hand to tuck some of them away behind curiously small ears, her expression shifting from distracted to contemplative. “He has some, yeah. Not as many as I do, and no where near as many as Dai-chan.”

At the mention of her childhood friend, Kise’s interest piques so much that he can’t help but give an overeager, “Yeah?” that tells a lot more about him than he’d like. Momoi looks like she knows it, too. It’s not his fault that he’s a little obsessively interested in this Dai-chan, considering that he’s involved in almost all of Momoi’s stories! She talks about him  _all the time_  and honestly, who can blame him for being interested? Momoi smiles into her cup, sipping daintily.

“Does…does he have sleeves like you do?” he asks, trying to play it casual. “And piercings?”

“Mm.” Momoi hums in answer. Her eyebrows are judging him.

“Ah,” he says, unsure of how to inquire more about the mystery man without being completely, embarrassingly transparent. Momoi, damn her, doesn’t do a thing to help him out along the way but rather continues smirking into her cup. He frowns at her, playfully put out by her teasing.

“You’re laughing at me.” He sighs, resting back in his chair. Momoi’s eyes light up, a shimmering shade of rose.

“Yeah.” She chirps, looking far too smug.

Kise holds in a groan and throws his head back, letting it hang before coming back up and glaring at her with a raised brow. He rests his hands in his lap, plays with the ring on his right pointed finger, a plain silver band he twists inattentively. When Momoi looks like she is about to actually laugh, out loud, at  _him_ , he releases the pent up groan and playfully slaps one hand on the tabletop.

He says, “You can’t blame me for being curious! You talk about him a lot.”

“That’s true,” she allows, still grinning, eyes as sharp as razors. “I didn’t say anything.”

“But you’re  _laughing_.” And Kise is too, now, realizing that he’s ridiculously wrapped up in this guy he’s never even met before, so much so that he’s become awkward and uncomfortable and Momoi  _knows_  it. He figures he might as well accept that yeah, there’s more than an ordinary amount of curiosity there, maybe a little interest he hasn’t felt for someone in a long, long time, and that maybe, just maybe, that’s okay.

Momoi, playfully brutal though she may be, takes mercy on him. Instead, she blatantly glances over his throat, his hands, the only parts of him not hidden by clothing, and raises one pink brow.

“So remember how you told me that you didn’t have any tattoos, that you weren’t  _allowed_ ,” she’s teasing him and the novelty of it, of being  _teased_ , has him smirking, shaking his head; her amusement as his expense, though it probably ought to spurn him a little, only has him grinning wider, feeling light with the realization that with her he has an inherent connection that’s hard to come by. Simply talking with her makes the pressures he’s faced with feel lighter, like he can breathe easier and his heart isn’t trapped in a cage but can instead lace every laugh that slips from his mouth with any emotion he wants—a sort of liberation he’s unused to. He wonders if this is what people mean when they talk about him like that; as someone who makes others feel lighter. If so, he’s thankful that he can be a presence like that for even one person, let alone hundreds of thousands.

“Well, I have some thoughts about that.” Momoi concludes, sounding playfully serious. Her pale skin is flushed at the cheeks, making her appear far more innocent than her sharp eyes belie.

“Do you.” He hesitates, wanting to laugh at the playful way she looks up and out through the window they’re seated by, looking into the cloudy sky and smiling as if she hasn’t a care in the world.

“I’m good,” she sings, actually laughing this time.  She looks back to him and every line of her expression is confident, every bit of her completely secure in her abilities. “I’m  _really_  fucking good.”

“I’m sure you are,” he starts, but she’s there already, shaking her head.

“I’m  _amazing_. And you have amazing skin, babe. I could totally make you into a masterpiece. I mean, you were kind of born a masterpiece,” she rolls her eyes and Kise does too, adding a shake to his head to let her know that he appreciates the compliment. “But with some of my ink on you? Holy shit, Kise. You’d be a  _dream_.”

Kise’s heart is pounding extra hard in his chest because he’s thinking about it, how can he not? Ever since he was young he’d wanted a tattoo. His father had had tattoos, had sat Kise down at night and explained why he’d gotten them, why he’d chosen certain colors, or not, and what they meant to him. It feels wrong that Kise doesn’t have one, at  _least_  one, somewhere on his body. Even if it’s in a place that’s hidden from view. He trusts Momoi, too, even if he hasn’t seen any of her work yet. He wants to. He wants to see how her art translates from paper to skin.

“I can’t,” he sighs, frowning. Again, “I can’t.”

“Okay, listen,” she says, cutting straight to the chase. “The next time I work is Friday, I get off at midnight. Do you wanna swing by and check out my portfolio? See my art? I’m determined to convince you to get a tattoo, your manager’s disapproval be damned.”

“It is so much more than disapproval. I will be  _disemboweled_.” He complains, shuddering dramatically. Momoi shrugs, every line of her poised and determined. He’s glaring at her, shaking his head, and for once he thinks he wins one of these silent battles as she lets out an exasperated sigh.

“Fine,” she gasps, huffing out a breath. “Just come by the shop and check out my work for the fun of it. I’m not going to give up on this, though.”

Kise smirks. That, he had already known.

 

✧

 

Kise has two photoshoots, several consultations, an interview, a planned outing for him to interact with fans, and one talk show appearance in the time between the Wednesday he met with Momoi for lunch and Friday when he’s supposed to make it to her shop. He’s been texting her throughout the week, whenever he can, and by the time he gets to his last consultation he realizes he’s ready for a break. He wants to go out to a club, wants to dance until his legs can barely keep him upright and his hearing is a consistent buzz.

But instead of focusing on how  _nice_  that would be, he picks up another photoshoot Friday morning that goes all sorts of wrong from people not showing up due to some disaster or other, a camera being dropped by an intern and cracking, and Kise’s measurements having been recorded incorrectly, leaving him standing there in his underwear while people fluttered around him trying to correct any number of mistakes.

By the time they get everything back on schedule and the pictures are all taken and satisfactory, Kise is striding out of the building ten minutes from midnight and twenty minutes away from the shop Momoi works at. 

He curses, hailing a cab.

 

✧

 

Luckily, Momoi had text him directions to the shop and the cab driver is familiar enough with the place to find a shortcut. Kise steps out of the cab, paying and thanking the man for his haste, before turning around and frowning. He’s in front of The Bakery; he’d recognize it anywhere. But then he turns to the building that shares a wall with The Bakery and reads the neon blue sign out front with the name Momoi had given him, and smiles.

The Zone.

Knowing for sure that he’s in the right place, Kise approaches the front door with a low-settling feeling of excitement he can’t quite explain, grips the handle and pushes through the front door to step inside. His eyes go wide, mouth falling open in a small gape as he takes in the intricacy of the shop’s interior. The walls are covered in art and there’s the smell of disinfectant and ink and something else that he can’t identify. There’s a constant, quiet hum of tattoo machines and conversation and laughter and Kise wonders how he can feel just as welcome and comfortable in a tattoo shop as he does in The Bakery, but he doesn’t question it. He turns to the left and spots someone he surmises to be the host, a tall man with beautiful green hair and rectangular glasses perched on his nose. There’s an incomplete ring in his nose that Kise thinks is called a septum piercing.

After a few awkward moments of Kise standing there wordlessly and the host blatantly ignoring him, he finally glances up at Kise, scowls, and flips a page of his magazine disdainfully.

Well.

At least this gives him ample opportunity to study the tastefully cluttered walls of the shop before Momoi discovers his presence. Everything is gorgeous, all of the art, Kise knows, are originals and he finds himself wandering around staring at them, studying them, wondering which of them belongs to Momoi, and to Dai-chan.

Kise had gotten there in record time, but is still late enough to warrant a glare from Momoi when she finally peeks out from her station, presumably to check the front door for him. Kise only smiles bashfully, rubbing the back of his head and standing awkwardly in place until Momoi snorts loudly from her section.

“Don’t mind Midorin, you can come on back here. That is, if you don’t mind?” She directs the question back into her station where Kise realizes she has a client. He raises a brow, glancing over to a clock that is chaotic enough to be almost impossible to read, and sees that it’s way past time for her shift to be over. The young lady currently being tattooed looks up and sees Kise standing at the front of the shop and there’s instant recognition. She doesn’t freak out or anything, though, only smiles and tells Momoi that she really doesn’t mind. Kise tucks his hands into his pockets, careful to walk through the hallways separating the different sections, trying not to stare in at each one and see the different tattoos and piercings being done. It was either a popular day or a pretty busy night because almost every workstation is occupied. Kise is very openly the only person in the shop that isn’t covered in tattoos—not a single one—and it’s obvious that he looks like an outsider. People are looking at him like an outsider.

He’s wearing his kitten sweater again and has paired it with plain black skinny jeans and his favorite combat boots. No scarf this time, exposing the base of his throat and allowing his collarbones to peek out from under the fabric. He has a maroon beanie pulled snug over the crown of his head and the right side of his hair pinned behind his ear. He thinks the outfit is stellar, but he’s also biased because the  _kitten sweater_ , but from the looks he’s receiving he definitely did something wrong. Or maybe he didn’t do something that was necessarily wrong, but there just seems to be something off about him. He smiles back anyways, not uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry I’m late, Momocchi. I picked up another shoot and it was kind of a disaster.” He doesn’t want to elaborate in front of a fan; he can see the woman peering through her bangs up at him, though her position makes it difficult for her to see him. She’s sitting slightly askew, leaning against a padded cushion so that her shoulder blades are flat and exposed. Momoi hums consolingly, her sass lost almost instantly when she looks at his face and notices the strain there. She smiles instead, gently, and explains the angelic figure she is tattooing for this woman, who she introduces as a young lady named Ann. Kise leans over and playfully introduces himself from an angle before absolutely  _cooing_  over how gorgeous the tattoo is. It’s clear that Momoi’s style of blacks and grays is perfect for the piece, which spans from just over the curve of the woman’s shoulder to the bottom curve of her shoulder blade. The angel’s wings are the most detailed, spectacular part of the piece and Kise is so impressed he can’t even look away.

“You flatter me,” Momoi jokes, but she’s grinning so much her eyes squint a little and it makes Kise’s heart soar. But then there is that familiar mischievous gleam and Kise is already shaking his head at her, playfully shaking his finger.

“Ann was just coming in for a last check and I wanted to touch up one of the wings, my perfectionism coming in to play.” She snorts. “So I told her we could do it real quickly tonight. Do you mind?”

“Of course not!” Kise answers, waving his hands. He feels utterly at ease watching Momoi work, especially now that  _his_ workday is over. “I don’t mind waiting.”

He really doesn’t mind, either, especially once he finds Momoi’s portfolio and starts to carefully flip through it. He’s amazed at her attention to detail, each piece more intricate and incredible than the last. He easily picks favorites but they begin to pile on top of one another and he’s having the time of his life wondering how she had shaded everything so perfectly with just black and gray and white ink.

He sighs and says, “Okay, I admit it. You  _are_ amazing.” 

Ann agrees with him almost instantly, pressing a friendly hand to Momoi’s thigh where she can reach it: a compliment. She removes her hand just after, returning to her relaxed position with a content smile on her face, almost glowing. Momoi’s smile is so genuine it makes Kise smile in response as he flips through to see every kind of tattoo imaginable. She does a lot of cityscapes and animals and solid tribal pieces but she is very clearly the resident master at portraits. There are entire sleeves done in her style and Kise is staggered by how gorgeous they all are. He’d known she was good, but not  _this_  good.

He decides that his favorite of favorites is a full sleeve with a mixture of soft clouds and a massive dragon winding its way up from the curve of a masculine wrist, wrapped once around the forearm just below the elbow and once more around the bicep until the majestic head roars up the line of a sculpted shoulder. The mane of the dragon looks like a wheat field, soft and as though with movement it will appear fluid, but the scales of the dragon are tiny and intricate and so detailed Kise can barely breathe. He wants to ask her how long it had taken, how much the man must’ve loved it once he saw it completed. It looks well loved, if he can say that. There are tiny splashes of color throughout, tears in the dragon’s scales leaking scarlet blood, the eyes an ethereal blue, the backdrop a midnight navy that matches the night sky perfectly. Kise hadn’t known that Momoi could do color and do it so well. Every blend looks so real Kise reaches out and touched the dragon’s wound as if his fingers will come away dripping with blood.

Momoi makes a pleased noise behind him and he carefully slides her portfolio shut. He wishes even more now that he’s seen her art that he could have something of hers on his body, maybe tucked into the curve of his groin, out of sight even in underwear? But he’s already dismissing the thought before it can even fully form because regardless of underwear or bathing suit photoshoots it is simply the fact that tattoos do not suit the image that continues to hold him back.

He’d spent years building his name and his persona up and it’s true that in his industry, it is important to keep yourself known to the public. To purposefully make publicity stunts happen so that you aren’t forgotten, so that you always have work and can always pay the bills.

But Kise is years beyond needing to do such things, is too famous and too wealthy for his own good. In fact, that’s the whole problem here. He has built up this reputation of being this Golden Boy, someone who is fresh and pure and it’d been a big enough shock when he’d agreed to do a nude shoot, and even more so when he’d agreed to do one with another male model—one that had been muscled and beefy and inked up like Kise couldn’t even  _believe_. Just being pictured with him had shaken the foundation he’d built up enough for his manager to refuse any and every path that could lead Kise towards altering his image. He can’t imagine his manager ever agreeing to a tattoo when he flips out every time Kise gets a haircut. 

When he turns around, Ann is standing and stretching a bit while Momoi disposes of her latex gloves into the proper bin before turning proudly back to Ann. She leads the blond woman over to a mirror that goes from the floor to the ceiling and hands her a handheld mirror. Once Ann lays eyes on the finished product, she just nods her head excitedly and thanks Momoi with glistening eyes, telling her how much she loves it, her voice a little breathless. Momoi takes the mirror before she wraps her arms around the woman, careful of the tattoo, and hugs her. They walk back to Momoi’s station where Kise is leaning against the wall watching them approach, a shy smile on his face. Momoi starts cleaning Ann up and reminds her of the protective measures she’ll have to follow, explaining each step in exquisite detail and making sure that Ann understands everything before she moves on. She pats the last bit of tape against Ann’s side, making sure everything is perfectly covered.

“This is my favorite tattoo by far,” Ann says, and Kise thinks  _even she has multiple tattoos_. Momoi nods her head graciously, tells Ann she’d love to do any future tattoos for her. Before Momoi can usher her back to the front and wish her a good night however, the blond woman turns to Kise, her eyes resolute. Kise smiles, anticipating what’s to come, feeling the familiar flicker of amazement that he’s come this far and then pride when he remembers how hard he’s worked to get here.

How much he’s sacrificed to get here.

“Kise, i-if you don’t mind, could I have your autograph? And maybe a picture together?”

“Of course!” he says, brightening. He pauses, realizing he has nothing for her to sign. He wonders if she has something she prefers to use, but when he turns back to her she’s got this look on her face that makes Kise wary. She laughs, waving a hand in front of her face to dismiss what she was thinking.

“Oh man, I was totally about to go full creeper status and joke that I could have you tattoo your signature, which would’ve  _been a joke_ , I promise.” Kise laughs, a good sport, but is still relieved that he didn’t have to let the girl down for real. He’s had some weird requests before and if he were being honest, this wouldn’t be the first time someone had thought about tattooing his signature on their body, though it is always a strange occurrence. He rubs the back of his neck good-naturedly, laughing with her so that she won’t feel totally awkward. She’s already blushing in nervousness, her hands shaking a bit, but she reaches into her purse and pulls out a grocery list, smiling in embarrassment as she passes it over to him with a pen. He brightens instantly and grins down at her.

“Ooh, a grocery list! You probably won’t believe me, but you’re my first. I’ve signed all sorts of things for fans, but this feels pretty cool. I hope it’s okay,” he finishes happily, tilting his head a little at her rapidly reddening cheeks. She nods happily, her expression appreciative. He doesn’t want her to be embarrassed about the grocery list and he isn’t lying about her being the first. He knows what it’s like to look up to someone and be nervous to just be in their presence, so he understands a little of where she’s coming from.

He sets the list down on Momoi’s counter (after she says it’s okay), and scrawls his loopy signature with an accompanying heart. When he turns back to her she’s holding her phone, hands still shaking, and he takes it upon himself to pull her into his side, his arm around her shoulders with hers wrapping gently around his waist. The pressure in the room suddenly changes, as if the door opens and closes and a breeze slips through the frame, but Kise pays it no mind.

“Momocchi?” he asks, holding Ann’s phone out towards her in question. She bounces forward and says, “Of course!” She gives them a countdown and hands the phone back to Ann when they’re done, watching as Kise puts a hand on her shoulder and asks if the picture is okay. Ann bounces on her toes, babbling about how much she loves it and how happy she is, and Kise is so besotted with how gracious she is that he pulls her in for one more hug and thanks her again. He makes a high-pitched noise to join in with her excitement and before he can even get another word out to wish her a good night, a deep, gravely voice snaps out behind them like the cracking of a whip.

“What the fuck?”

Startled, Ann drops the phone on the ground with a crash and turns as Momoi clucks her tongue disapprovingly. Kise reaches down and picks the phone up, handing it to Ann before turning to the rude voice, already prepared to calm him down so he won’t scare Ann any further. The moment he meets the guy’s eyes, however, his protective words die in his throat.

He is  _gorgeous_. Terrifying, yes, but stunning with close-cropped blue-black hair, olive skin, and piercing blue eyes carving slashes along sharp cheekbones. Kise feels like he needs to take a step back; he doesn’t know if that’s because he’s intimidated—the man is even taller than he is, and broader, and  _cut_ —or if it’s because he wants more room to take in the rest of him. There’s so much to take in, the way his mouth curls into a scowl, thin lips disapproving. The way his nose points straight down his face, kinked a little higher than half way along, most certainly because of a past broken nose or a few. Kise glances over his features, takes everything in, notices the straight barbell pierced through his right eyebrow, the five circular barbells descending in circumference up his left ear, and a few piercings in his other ear that Kise doesn’t even know the names of.

He’s wearing the skimpiest black muscle tank Kise has ever seen and he wants desperately for this guy to turn to the side, if even briefly, so that he can catch a glimpse of his stomach and chest. He has an inked sleeve on each arm, compact and detailed and so, so colorful. There are so many colors Kise doesn’t even know where to look first, can’t hold his eyes in focus on just one aspect. He wonders if his entire body is like that, covered in color. There’s only one tattoo on his neck but it seems to be a part of one that was hidden away on his left shoulder blade, the muzzle of a dragon.

Beyond the tattoos covering his arms, Kise can already tell from the defined biceps and forearms that this man is strong, lithe. His thighs strain against his black jeans and he has a black bandana hanging from his back pocket and Kise takes a flickering moment to wonder if he actually wears that bandana or if it’s a fashion statement. The only part of his outfit that isn’t soul-sucking black is his shoes, which are just plain old loafers, a little worn out, just like an old man would wear.

Kise might be in love.

He lifts his hand and absentmindedly tucks his hair behind his ear, leaving his entire face exposed as opposed to only the half of it, as well as showcasing his single hoop earring. It’s unintentional, but the look on the man’s face when Kise’s bangs are pulled away to reveal the cherry softness of his sharp cheekbones is something altogether intriguing, and when his eyes dart to the hoop and he scowls further, Kise wants to laugh. He’s never believed in love at first sight but there’s something about the laziness this guy clearly holds like a trophy unto himself that makes Kise want to smile, something about his scowl that seems like a challenge. Something about the way those blue eyes trace Kise’s cheekbones and fall to his lips, the way they stay there for a second longer than socially acceptable, lingering before bouncing up to look over his shoulder at Momoi and making Kise’s heart race and think maybe he’d made a decision on that whole love-at-first-sight-thing too soon.

“Hi,” he breathes, uncaring that the guy hadn’t even been looking at him, that he’d been glaring over his shoulder at Momoi as if to get her to answer some unspoken demand. Momoi stays silent, apparently, and he looks back at Kise with rapidly narrowing eyes. Kise watches him as his blue eyes flicker to Kise’s exposed ear, the one without the hoop, then down to Kise’s neck, pausing for a long moment on the kitten sweater before jumping to his hands, very blatantly looking for ink. When he looks back up at Kise’s face there’s nothing there but dismissal, and Kise actually feels a little wounded.

“Satsuki, how many times have I told you? Keep your clique out of your station. They get their grimy hands all over shit they’re not supposed to touch and it’s too much work to fix it.”

“My hands are anything but grimy,” Kise cuts in, momentarily uncaring that he might’ve cut Momoi off. He has tunnel vision, he won’t deny it, but he also has a feeling that Momoi wouldn’t have answered him with anything more than a roll of her eyes regardless. He holds a hand out towards the man, amber eyes gleaming in challenge.

“Take a look for yourself.” Those blue eyes are focusing in on him again, still unfazed, but Kise’s got that attention for detail no one can match and he sees it, a flicker, a gleam of it—curiosity. The man huffs, shifts his shoulders in what can only be called a predatory fashion, before moving away from them, ignoring Kise’s offered hand and carelessly calling out to Momoi over his shoulder.

“Go home, Satsuki.” His voice sounds how chocolate tastes and Kise sort of hates himself for thinking something so ridiculous but  _it’s true_  and his heart’s doing weird things that are making his ribcage feel too small so he just doesn’t care.

“Actually, we’re going out tonight. You coming?” Even as she speaks to the man, her eyes stay on Kise as she comes up beside him. She wraps a hand around Ann’s elbow, steering her towards the entrance and leaving Kise to peek out and around Momoi’s station, trying to locate the mystery man’s station and get a glimpse of what he’s like through his workstation. She shuffles Ann out and wishes her a good night, finally, and turns back just in time to see Kise’s eyes flash when he locates his target, the one with the idiot reaching up to make one of the perfectly aligned framed pictures of a dragon he’d drawn crooked, something he did specifically to piss Momoi off. One of the only things he isn’t too lazy to go out of his way to do, too. She rolls her eyes as she comes to stand by Kise, grinning at his star-struck expression, a knowing gleam in her eyes.

The guy turns, sneering at her as he says, “Hell no.”

“Mm, your loss Dai-chan.” Momoi watches every shift of Kise’s expression, from surprise to a certain knowing gleam to a smirk that holds in all of the secrets that she could read in his eyes in that exact moment. She knew that Kise had an eye for detail, but boy was he in for a shock in their already growing friendship because she was the  _queen_ of detail. Aomine and Midorima were the most stubborn idiots she knew and yet they both knew and grudgingly admitted that she had a scary talent for noticing things that others didn’t. Truth be told, she hadn’t really even needed to see it flicker through his eyes in this one moment, she’d already seen enough to wager that there is something there for Kise when it comes to Aomine. It’s the way his eyes brighten at Aomine’s name, the way he’ll focus in on her when she speaks about him, and hey, if she’d noticed the passionate attention triggered by Aomine’s name and subsequently decided to mention him more often than she usually would, well. She likes Kise, and she loves Aomine. She knows that idiot better than he knows himself and she’ll be damned if he hides himself away from love because he’s too lazy or too jaded to even let himself get a taste of it.

She shrugs her shoulders, sliding a hand into Kise’s and simultaneously breaking his focus on the sliver of tattooed tailbone that they could see as Aomine crooked another framed photo. Momoi would straighten them all in the morning; it was almost a routine by now. And Aomine’s laziness would eventually win out, which also meant that eventually she’d win, too. She smirks. She loves winning.

Kise’s eyes change the moment his focus breaks, efficiently hiding those secrets he so desperately wants to keep, even from her. It’s no bother; she’d seen all she needed to see. She steers him towards the front door, calling out where they’re headed to coworkers they pass and asking if anyone wants to meet up. It’s a Friday, well, it had been, so there are more people in than usual and Momoi is pleasantly surprised to hear so many promises to meet later on. Kise is in for a grand night of fun, but as they head for the door and step through it, she watches his eyes flick back and find Aomine through the crowded room and she mentally huffs. That one is going to be a tough nut to crack, especially since it has been over a decade since she’d last put honest-to-God effort into cracking him, but now she has more reason to try. She squeezes Kise’s fingers, pulls herself closer to his muscled body and begins humming the latest popular tune.

She does so love to win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to thank everyone who had to deal with my countless tweets about this story while it was in the making, as well as anyone who expressed excitement and/or encouragement for it! I honestly never expected this story to become so long but once I started writing it, I found that I just couldn’t stop. 
> 
> Which is ironic, considering the notion that started this whole thing was simply: “Aomine Daiki with nipple piercings.” Anyways, I hope you enjoy! : )


	2. Chapter 2

Kise wakes up the next morning and almost, almost throws up in his hands, but thankfully he’s quick as a fox and leaps from his bed to the bathroom in record speed, just getting the toilet seat up before spilling his stomach into the bowl. He’d had a fantastic time last night, and now he’s more than paying for it. He decides that it’s what he’s due, if he’s being honest with himself, because all night—while he was still sober enough to be coherent—all he could think about was Aomine Daiki. And then, when he wasn’t anywhere near sober, wasn’t even on the same planet as sober let alone in the same galaxy, all Kise could talk about was hypothetical people who looked surprisingly similar to one Aomine Daiki.

He’d known pretty much the moment they got to the club that Momoi had already figured him out—in fact, he’d known earlier, when she’d stopped by his apartment to share a few pre-club drinks before he put actual club-appropriate clothing on. He was so not about to spill whiskey on his favorite kitten sweater, or have someone’s grimy hands pulling at it and now all he’s thinking about is the way Aomine’s lips had wrapped around those words, grimy hands, and how close Kise had been to touching his.

Luckily, Momoi was a genius and Kise got sick of being inconspicuous about his crush around drink four, in which all of his hypothetical “he might have tattoos, like, everywhere,” or, “his eyes might be, like, this shade of blue, it’s unreal. I think hypothetically, they’d be unreal,” and his favorite, “he has this straight up fucking cut body” became a lot more real. He even admitted it, though now as his head is pounding and so far in the toilet he thinks he might fall in, he can’t remember actually admitting it. He knew it had happened, though.

The last time Kise had gotten this drunk had been when his on-again-off-again boyfriend Yukio Kasamatsu had dumped him once and for all. He feels terrible even thinking it, but honestly the reason he had been so hurt that night was not because he had lost Yukio, not entirely, but because he’d been left alone. There was a bone-crushing awareness that came with the realization that no one in the world wanted all of you, wanted to know every part of you, and more, wanted to keep you. It’s difficult to manage the people who want him for his fame, for his wealth, for his body, his face, his charisma. It’s difficult to pick out the genuine curiosity about his personality, his goals, his desires, and his dreams. What he cares about and what he wishes for. It’s difficult to find those people when almost everyone he meets is only interested in the pieces of his public persona that have been strewn across the world, some pieces more exciting to people in certain areas than in others.

And it isn’t as though he is suffering from separation anxiety or anything like that. He is just…alone. His parents had been nothing but loving and wonderful when they were still alive, he never had a friend that left him just because, and even when Yukio left, Kise had understood. He just does not do well with being alone. Everyone he knows thinks that he is an extrovert, someone who thrives with others and flourishes in crowds. That is true.

But he is also, at the same time, introverted. He craves, more than anything, deep, intimate relationships with close friends. With someone who can love all of him. And going through his life not having that, not being able to share all of his secrets with someone and knowing that they won’t sell him out for those secrets or just straight up not care about them, has been the biggest challenge of his life.

But Kise has never backed down from a challenge. He enjoys challenges. It just seems that this the biggest challenge of all was putting up more of a fight than Kise is yet prepared for, though there is no way he is going to give up because of it. Especially not now when he has his sights set on someone, even if the interest is solely physical.

But then, is it really? He’ll admit only to himself and possibly a sneaky Momoi that he’s been crushing on Aomine before he’d ever even seen the guy. But having seen him last night, Kise knows for sure that that’s a man he wants to fight for. That he’d like to know the secrets slipped between each tattoo on his skin, between the hard edges of his eyes and the slash of a scowl over his mouth. Kise wonders if he has any scars on his body, or if they are all below the surface, like Kise’s are.

He wonders if he has a right to try to pursue the answer to that question. At least Momoi seems to think so, Kise thinks as he heaves once more, groaning into the bowl. He can hear his phone ringing in the other room and knows that it is a reminder that he has another consultation in an hour, that he is to meet his manager and talk business and maybe a little pleasure for lunch, since Kobori likes to make sure that while swamped, he’s still able to live his life.

Momoi trusts him; he knows this too. He knows it because she likes to touch him, to keep him close to her, almost protective in the way she handles him. He knows it because she’s shared some things with him that he is sure she’s never shared with her other friends, even her coworkers at The Zone, most of which he had met last night. Realizing this now, he groans again, wondering how he can ever top his first impression from last night. A Kise that is a powerhouse dancer and a superb drunk until he deposits himself into his room in the early morning and crawls to the porcelain throne he then prays to for the rest of the morning until he passes out halfway onto his mattress. At least they’ll miss that last part.

He hadn’t made plans to meet up with Momoi again, but they text each other constantly and he is sure he’ll drop by the shop again just to say hi, maybe bring her a pastry from The Bakery, butter her up because she deserves it; turn down another insistent offer to tattoo him, because he is a dog on a leash. It hadn’t helped that Momoi had laughed, said something about how he’d probably look good in a collar, and then he’d been thinking about that collar wrapped around his throat with olive-toned hands clutching the end of the leash, blue eyes smiling through the shroud of darkness just overhead.

“Why,” Kise moans, resting his cheek on the lip of the toilet seat where he’s pulled some toilet paper and fashioned a makeshift pillow for his time there. He still feels like absolute shit, but his head is clearing and he’s actually quite used to hangovers, though this one is in a league of its own. He is an adult, and one in an industry where everyone tries to impress everyone and that includes taking shots with prospective clients to appease them and taking more shots with friends to try to remind them that he’s not too old for such things. He knows the best hangover remedies and how to put on a professional mask when he has early morning meetings after work parties, though that isn’t to say that he’s all sunshine and rainbows, either.

Slowly, carefully picking himself up from the bathroom floor, he flushes his toilet paper pillow along with a lot of stuff he doesn’t really want to think about down the drain before heading over to his phone. He shuts the alarm off, almost rolling his eyes before remembering how absolutely terrible of an idea that is, before heading into his kitchen. The moment his hand is on the handle to the refrigerator he remembers that he has not stocked it with anything that can help him out, other than orange juice. That’s good, but not enough. He pours a generous cup, drinking greedily and pushing all thoughts of last night and Aomine Daiki from his head, organizing his plans for the day mentally as he rinses out his cup. He has a long day ahead of him but he’s already accepting of how he plans to end it: by rewarding himself with a pastry from The Bakery and stopping in at his new favorite tattoo shop.

 

✧

 

Kobori warns him that his schedule is going to pick up to a grueling pace and that it will feel like it had come quickly and without warning, since he’s been spoiled the past few months with spaced-out duties. He believes him, he knows what it’s like, has been through it time and time again, but even still: he is unprepared.

He warns Momoi about it, waving a hand as though it will be fine and it won’t really affect him. He spends his last few weeks of relative free time in The Zone; chatting up the coworkers and friends that Momoi had introduced him to. Akashi Seijuro is their best piercer, small and fair and quiet, but there’s something calculating about his eyes that keeps Kise focused whenever he’s around him, as if he has to watch his every move, make sure not to step out of place. The redhead only has a few tattoos, some shoji and chess pieces here and there with indiscernible writing beneath them, a justice weighing scale on the back of his neck, and some Japanese characters on his inner forearms that are usually hidden by long sleeves. Imayoshi Shoichi is a fellow tattoo artist that creeps him out a bit, if he’s honest, though he has a quick wit and sharp intellect that Kise finds appropriately exigent.

There is also an intern-of-sorts, a Wakamatsu Kousuke, who’s entertaining as hell considering he has a short fuse and that Aomine, his boss, often rubs him the wrong way. He has this way of turning almost purple when keeping himself silent as Aomine does something to annoy him, letting out a, yes boss, like a train’s steam whistle before stomping into the bathroom and pacing his frustration out. It’s the shop’s inside joke that he takes pressure poops back there, releasing all of his tension in one single turd. Kise fids that particularly hilarious but has been warned not to let Wakamatsu know, lest he should be jumped in the alley out back and may not survive the ordeal. Kise had laughed once more, asserting that he knows his way around a fight in a cocky tone that had Aomine himself glancing over, appraising him suspiciously, as though he could tell with a look whether someone was a fighter or not. Kise wonders if he’d passed that test.

When Kise isn’t spending time taking up space in The Zone, he wanders over to The Bakery and bothers Kagami. That’s also where he meets Kuroko Tetsuya, Kagami’s silent and sneaky little boyfriend. Kise thinks they make an absolutely adorable couple and is constantly cooing over them until he catches them making out in the back with a line of customers out front and decides that they are gross, and should get married and elope.

He also meets The Bakery’s biggest customer, literally. He’s so tall he has to duck under the doorframe and he buys so many sweets whenever he comes in it’s a wonder that he doesn’t sink down into the concrete. Long, purple hair hangs down his face and he always has one hand in a bag of chips, munching quietly away. Sometimes he comes alone and sometimes there is a short, beautiful boy beside him, black hair perfectly styled and arms hanging loosely at his sides. Kise likes to watch them interact but never approaches them. He’ll just eat his muffin or cookie or cupcake in peace, wondering how Kagami manages to not twitch out of existence every time he makes a new pastry and asks Kuroko to name it, only to come back to a sign that merely reads, new pastry, or something equally as bland. The one time that Kagami had said something about it Kuroko had merely looked up at him and said, “Are you ever going to make that vanilla shake muffin?” and Kagami had deflated, like a balloon, and leaned down to press a kiss into the dip of his boyfriend’s cheek.

There are others that he sees or talks to or has simply heard about from Momoi or Kagami. But he mostly sticks with the same group whenever they go out, regardless of what they are doing: Momoi, Kagami, and Kuroko. When alone with Momoi, the two like to joke that they are just attracted to Kagami and Kuroko because they have such a perfect relationship, meanwhile Momoi and Kise are both working the unrequited and oblivious love trains, solo. They don’t dwell on it, mostly because they both have plans on helping the other to find a way to break through to their intended.

Momoi, admittedly, seems to have it worse.

Over the past few weeks, Kise has learned a lot about Riko Aida. He’s learned that she is a personal trainer, the best in the country, and that she’s even more grueling and strict about workouts than Momoi is, which is saying a lot. She’s smaller than Momoi, has short brown hair and beautiful brown eyes and the incredible ability to gauge muscle mass at a glimpse of bare skin. She is also a little insecure of her own body, unsure or in denial of her sexuality, and has absolutely no cooking ability to speak of whatsoever.

Momoi had laughed about that, told Kise that the brunette had been trying for years to make something that was delicious, but the best she’d ever managed was almost decent. Even Momoi herself can’t lie about the food, not to Riko’s face, and that was one of the ways that Momoi had met Riko, actually. They’d shared a cooking class in high school, had sat at the same pod, and the first week Riko had spilt spaghetti sauce all over Momoi’s white skirt and favorite sweater, and after apologizing had asked her if the taste was good. Momoi had laughed so hard she’d shed tears, uncaring of her outfit, only caring that the tears in Riko’s eyes from messing up so spectacularly had stopped when she knew Momoi wasn’t upset with her, only caring that she had put that smile on Riko’s face, and the rest, as they say, was history.

Momoi had finally opened up a little in regards to that whole hickey situation, too, which Kise knows is still raw. Apparently Momoi had gone over to Riko’s the night she’d showed him to his hotel, had found Riko drunk as a skunk trying to make a sandwich and had convinced her to stop and just watch movies with her on the couch.

Riko had made the first move.

Momoi hadn’t cried when she retold the story, hadn’t frowned or even reacted as he took it all in, how she’d been hesitant, asking Riko if it was okay, if it was really what she wanted—if Momoi was what she wanted. Riko had said yes, yes, yes, and had kissed her into the back of the couch, brushing her lips across Momoi’s jaw and down her throat until the infamous hickey was made. When Momoi finally moved, shifted so that she was on top of Riko, finally reciprocating as she began to kiss her back, she’d been elated when Riko allowed it. Encouraged it, even.

It was when things got too heated, when Momoi was caught up in a haze of lust and affection and had moved her hands under Riko’s shirt, her fingertips finding purchase on flat abs. It had only been a moment; Momoi couldn’t even remember the time between having Riko underneath her and feeling the arm of the couch against her spine as she looked over into Riko’s wet eyes, fractured with shock.

Momoi hadn’t gone into detail. She’d been kicked out, rubbed raw with some carefully delivered words meant to simultaneously refuse her and soothe the burn of rejection. She’d looked up and smiled at Kise, shaking her head, wondering aloud how she’d ended up here, with this lot. Kise sympathized, didn’t know exactly what to say or do other than to come around to her side of the booth and shepherd her into the warmth of his bigger body.

While Momoi fights a tug of war in terms of progress, taking one step forward and two steps back, Kise is not making progress at all.

Aomine is about as stubborn as he is oblivious. Kise doesn’t know whether he’s just utterly clueless or if he is just that uninterested. Kise had been close to giving up on a few cases, just because he didn’t want to be a pest, didn’t want to pursue someone who clearly did not want anything to do with him. He knows that no means no, even if it isn’t said aloud.

Momoi, having sensed his downtrodden mood, had let slip to Aomine that Kise had mentioned being a little bummed that Aomine hadn’t gone with them to the club. She may have been toning it down a bit, a little bummed was the biggest understatement of the year, but the flickering surprise over his normally lax features and the flustered, “Yeah?” Aomine responded with had her beaming, albeit mentally where Aomine couldn’t see that she was excited about his response enough so that he might get suspicious about it.

She’d called Kise that night and told him that, like always, Aomine was just being an emotionally incompetent dumbass, and that Kise totally did affect him. Kise loves her, but he hadn’t believed her, not until the next day when he’d dropped into The Zone before leaving the bag of muffins he’d bought for the shop up front with Midorima, nodding to Aomine on his way to Momoi’s station and expecting to be ignored as he always was, when Aomine actually nodded back, eyes holding his gaze unblinkingly.

Kise hadn’t paused, hadn’t reacted, until he had his back turned. Then he’d smiled so wide he felt ridiculous and had had to hide his face in his hands, because, honestly, he had it so bad. Momoi had reached out and patted his bicep while laughing quietly at how cute and embarrassing he was, peeking around him to see Aomine cleaning his space up before his next appointment and glancing just once, long and sharp over to where Momoi’s hand was on Kise’s skin. She’d turned away, hand slipping off casually, a grin breaking over her features like the sun’s rays shining through dense cloud cover.

In the month since he’d flown to Seattle, his progress with Aomine amounted to voluntary and might he say, steamy, eye contact, and friendly nods of welcome. One time when he was standing too far out of Momoi’s station, almost in the hallway, and Aomine walked by without insulting him, his shoulder brushed against the lines of Kise’s back and sent a chain reaction of tingles from the base of his spine to the crown of his skull. That was progress, right?

Any and all progress is put to a screeching halt the morning of the beginning of Kise’s grueling schedule, because he literally has no free time to offer anyone, not even Momoi. He still texts her, but the messages are few and far between as the days press on because he’s either dedicated to a work-related duty, rushing somewhere he needed to be five minutes ago, or trying to get a few hours of sleep in. Either way, he sort of falls off the map and isn’t even able to drop by the shop anymore, his absence a rippling wave of confusion and unease for Momoi and her coworkers. They’ve gotten used to his sunny disposition in the corner of the store, chatting up waiting clients and signing autographs when there’s recognition, or hanging out in Momoi’s station in-between clients, as is most common.

They like to tease him, call him Golden Boy, make jokes at his expense because he doesn’t have a single tattoo (they cannot even believe this) and his hoop piercing is so vanilla and his features are so beautiful they can barely look at him. He takes it all in stride, loving the fact that he’s being accepted, even if at the sake of his personal tastes being under fire. Especially since he fires right back. They hadn’t expected him to be snarky, hadn’t expected him to have a backbone, but he is as meticulous in retorts as Imayoshi is on his best days, as attentive to the details of their lives as Momoi, even, and as confident as their resident brooding boss-man.

Eventually Golden Boy turns into an endearment and he gets high fives and manly hugs and slaps on the back whenever he is around—even Midorima eventually scowls at him with a little less biting hostility. It is a huge leap for him, makes him feel at home when he hasn’t had a stable home to call his own since he was still a kid in Tokyo living with his parents.

Momoi texts him constantly, telling him how the shop is in shambles without him, making him laugh and shake his head as he hails yet another cab, snorting when he realizes he knows the driver, a man who had asked for an autograph but had insistently asserted that it was for his daughter, he swears. Incredulous, Michael the cab driver asks him if he ever settles down and just chills out, which makes Kise smile and say, “Bills to pay, mouths to feed, and all that.” Even though his bills are well beyond paid with his paycheck and he barely has time to eat a thing regardless. Michael shakes his head with wide eyes and whistles under his breath, saying something about not knowing how Kise does it. Kise smiles graciously, returns to Momoi’s text and replies with something encouraging and an emoticon with too many sparkles and too much cheer. She responds that it better be real soon, because someone is extra crabby and snappy and she’s close to snapping back.

Kise’s heart flutters at the mention of Aomine, at the effect of his absence on the man. He knows he shouldn’t read too much into it, but it’s so difficult not to when the man’s all he thinks about. Even when he’s speaking with clients, setting up important work and building his client base, he finds himself getting distracted. He’d had a shoot just the other day with another male model, one who was dark and lithe and so reminiscent of Aomine, but without the tattoos, the piercings, the scowl. Maybe not quite so like Aomine as Kise had thought—there is no way to separate Aomine from his ink, the steel in his body, the almost permanent lazy scowl on his face.

Instead, he’d been charming and confident and smooth as silk when he flirted with Kise, even though he was five years younger than Kise and it showed. Kise had batted him off playfully, making jokes and okay, so what if he had allowed some extra touches to go by un-blocked, imagining that those hands were Aomine’s and that the tattooed man would actually want to touch him? Sue him.

He tells Momoi about it later through text, feels like he’s in confession or something, but she merely tells him so simply that it’s okay. Just like that, it’s okay—reminds him that he is human and that humans crave touch, and well, if Aomine isn’t going to get his shit together and realize what a great person Kise is then why should he wait? Kise thinks that that’s a little harsh, tells her so with an accompanying flustered emoticon, but agrees that he shouldn’t have to feel guilty for pursuing the fleeting interested touches of a stranger when Aomine doesn’t so much as greet him with anything more than a grunt.

After that conversation, Kise had felt oddly liberated. He’d walked into his next client meeting with his head held high, his expression sunshine bright like he was known for, his smile genuine.

By the time he gets back to his hotel that night he’s too tired to accept Momoi’s offer to go get drinks, falls asleep right in the middle of texting her back to explain that he just wants to sleep. He wakes the next morning determined, sending the message regardless of how late it is, along with a follow-up explanation just so that she isn’t confused. He is going to stop by The Zone today if it kills him.

 

✧

 

When Kise steps inside The Zone for the first time in weeks, Midorima closes his magazine. Kise’s jaw actually drops, his honey amber eyes wide, but he composes himself before Midorima can change his mind; he is already narrowing his eyes at the blond, reaching for the magazine. Kise ducks his head, rubbing his neck sheepishly.

“Hey Midorimacchi,” he greets, smiling good-naturedly when the green-haired host’s scowl only worsens. At that moment Wakamatsu comes walking out from the back room, arms full of supplies carefully stacked on powerful forearms and looks over to welcome what he expects to be a client. When he sees that it‘s actually Kise, he almost drops his cargo, mouth plopping open audibly.

“Golden Boy!” he shouts, scowling. Kise smirks at that, at the disparity between the kid’s relieved voice and disapproving expression. He lifts a hand to wave and suddenly heads are popping up from various stations, all suddenly brightening when they see him. A lot of taunts, a few threats, and several hard punches to his biceps later and Kise feels like he’s finally home again. He heads towards Momoi’s station, cautious, his eyes flickering carefully around the room, looking but not finding. He turns and is met with Momoi sitting facing him, legs and arms crossed, lips pursed and eyes narrowed at him. She’s wearing shades of pastel today, complimenting the pink of her hair beautifully. Her toenails are painted black and her sandals are gold.

He opens his mouth to speak, to apologize, but she cuts him off without hesitation.

“Any day you could show up from your busy schedule, and you pick today.” Her voice is saccharine sweet, her eyes stormy. He holds his hands up, playfully trying to keep her calm. He’s seen this look directed at Aomine enough times to know he’s in danger.

“I’m sorry, Momocchi. This is literally the only time I have free this week.”

She holds her ground, her tone still formidable as she says, “I can’t believe you.”

“Momocchi,” he whines, scuffing closer to her. When she doesn’t move to ward him away or glare at him in a way that makes him cross his legs, he bends down and hugs her, pressing his nose against her hair and sighing. “I’ve missed you so much!”

It takes her about a minute to loosen in his hold, deflate and bring her crossed arms up and around him. Her dominant hand rests against the back of his neck and holds him close to her, but her hands are gentle. She whispers, “Idiot,” into his ear and smacks his bicep lightly. He pretends that it stings, bounces back from her and hisses through his teeth, pouting. She shrugs, tells him he deserves it, and turns back to what she had apparently been drawing before his interference. He moves to look over her shoulder, tucking his hands into his deep green cargo pants’ pockets. He’s got sneakers with handwritten messages on them in various colors and a plain gray shirt, nothing too flashy because he was so exhausted he just wanted to be comfortable. No one in the shop seems to mind, though Kobori’s eyes had boggled when he’d seen him earlier that morning. When he’d looked ready to protest, Kise had given him the ultimatum of the outfit or a tattoo, hoping but not really holding out for anything. Which was wise, because he instantly gestured to the outfit, shaking his head as he replied, “This. Sadly, this.”

Momoi is sketching what looks like a statue of an angel with a crown of roses atop his head. His wings are huge and outspread, like eagles’ wings, and they are intricately detailed, each feather similar but in some small, altered way, unique. She’d shaded in a way that made it look 3D, made it appear as though he could reach out and wrap his hands around the statue angel’s body like a trophy. He hums in approval, dipping his head twice when she glances up at him. Her eyes close for a moment when she smiles, happy to have his approval though he really doesn’t understand why. He has no idea how to do anything artistic if it doesn’t involve his own anatomy or a camera.

“So, how have you been? Busy?” he asks, pulling her work stool over so he can sit by her, watch her hands lovingly trace over her work and add more gradient to the shadows outstretching from the angel. She hums affirmatively, shoulders sagging.

“You’re not the only one in high demand around here, babe.” For her benefit, Kise gasps, acting affronted.

“Inconceivable!” he chirps in a high-pitched voice, and Momoi’s eyes shine with recognition of the quote. She bobs her head approvingly, laughter like bells chiming.

“Yeah, yeah, hotshot. Haven’t had a moment for these hands to rest, and now you walk in here and I actually get a moment and I don’t feel like using it to rest. Strange world.”

“The strangest,” Kise agrees, thinking that he and Momoi are on similar wavelengths. He could have taken this time, a brief window of free time between scheduled meetings, to slip a nap in or actually eat something, but instead he’s here, soaking up the shop’s good vibes. Her hand is steady as it moves over the paper, her strokes unbroken and flawless. He wonders how long it must’ve taken her to perfect her own unique style.

She shrugs the heavy waves of her hair over her shoulder, sighing. “But honestly, I can’t complain. I mean, I was booked completely, but Dai-chan was booked so fully he might as well have been a library.”

“That was terrible,” Kise snorts, shaking his head mock-sympathetically as she rolls her eyes and grudgingly agrees that that analogy hadn’t been her best.

“Whatever, he was buried in work, okay? He did so many tattoos I’m surprised his hands didn’t fall right off.”

“Damn,” Kise whistles, nodding his head. “Business is booming, though. That’s gotta be an awesome thing, right?”

“Of course! We love it, we thrive on it, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t get exhausted of it too, ya know? And Aomine, well, he never gets tired of it. Even when he’s overloaded like he has been lately, he cherishes each tattoo he does, like it was his first. He’d never admit that in his life but, ya know.”

Kise smiles, thinking about the possible expressions that he can imagine on Aomine’s face whenever he does a tattoo. He’d been in the shop enough times with Aomine present to sneakily watch the man work, but whenever he saw him there it was only that same frustrated scowl lining his mouth. Momoi hadn’t been paying attention until Kise started to mention it, and then she’d gotten this look, the one that said she knew secrets that Kise would wish he could know if he even knew where they were coming from.

So basically: nada. She gave him nothing, just smirked and shrugged those dainty shoulders and hummed at him, like some annoyingly beautiful know-it-all songbird.

They’re quiet for a little while, just Momoi adding to the angel and Kise watching her hand move through every line. When she starts talking, it’s about Aomine’s schedule again and something in his brain ticks into place and he realizes that it sounds a lot like Momoi is making excuses for her childhood friend. Almost as though she wants to make sure that Kise is still interested, that he doesn’t think that Aomine has forgotten about him or anything. That he’s too busy to even inquire. Kise’s expression slips slightly but he lets her talk. He really values their friendship, adores her to bits as a person, but he also knows that she is protective to a fault and would do anything to keep her loved ones safe and happy, even if that meant brutal sincerity or even forced assurances she wasn’t even sure she could make honestly.

When she glances over at him, her words lulling and stopping completely, he realizes that he’s been zoning out, stuck in his own mind. Momoi realizes that her placating words had done nothing to make him feel better and sighs, lips curling down in a frown. She’s sitting very still, her hand not moving over her work for a moment, and then she turns to him, open and honest.

“I don’t know what his problem is, Kise.” And that right there, more than anything else she’s tried to placate him with, is what he needs. The admittance that whatever he’d been dangling in front of Aomine for the past several weeks hadn’t been working, or hadn’t been enough. Kise’s not really used to rejection because he doesn’t often put himself out there, and when he does, people just accept him for what he offers—his body, his lips. But he is used to being alone, can protect himself in the knowledge that he’s been doing this for a long time, that maybe it just isn’t right here, in this place, with this person.

The instant he thinks it, his stomach feels like it twists itself in knots, his heart pulsing heavily, painfully. He knows it’s wrong, that it’s a lie. There has never been a more apt place, a more fitting person. Somehow, he just knows it. But that doesn’t change the fact that the circumstances might be different for Aomine, that the place and the person might be right for Kise but for Aomine he’s still got time. He’s got plans.

Kise rises from his stool, sliding a hand along the line of Momoi’s shoulders and tugging her in close for a hug, whispering a thank you in her ear and kissing her cheek gently. When he pulls back, he watches her study the perfect lines of his sunny mask, his perfect smile, his molten eyes, the playful tilt of his head. Master of details or not, he’s had more pressure to encourage the perfection of his mask. Not even Momoi Satsuki can see through it. He can see the moment she realizes this, see the moment of uncertainty, her brain configuring whether he’s truly okay with the secret she’d offered him or not, but ultimately she decides on neutral ground, as he had expected her to. She stays still, watchful, careful of her expression.

“I’ve got another meeting in twenty, so I’m gonna head out. The angel looks gorgeous, Momocchi. I especially like the way the hands are poised in front, like he’s offering something special. You’re incredible. But that doesn’t mean you’re not susceptible to exhaustion! Don’t work yourself too hard.” Momoi straightens, gives him an offhand order to go visit Kagami and Kuroko real quick before turning back to her art as she hears Kise call out his goodbyes to their friends. She studies her work, studies the angel’s outstretched hands, the way the upturned palms cup the air, side by side. She had sketched them out with the thought of him accepting something nameless from someone unknown. Accepting.

Kise had looked at her work and seen him offering, not accepting. She studies the lines, the shadows; sees her work from Kise’s perspective, a new perspective, and her brain clicks into place. She hasn’t given up on helping Aomine realize that he has feelings, or on helping him meet Kise’s, and she most certainly hasn’t given up on standing alongside Riko, regardless of where her feelings will lie. But she has gotten a little depressed, a little down about both situations, has focused and honed in on one perspective, the only correct path, a subtle maneuvering that was subversive and sneaky and underhanded, true, but would allow her to be out of Kise’s and Aomine’s potential relationship, and Kise out of Momoi’s and Riko’s. It had all been planned so that there wasn’t any notable, outright meddling, something Momoi found tedious and officious.

But sometimes, she thinks, turning her work just slightly and seeing very clearly the way her angel is offering something, you just need to shift the frame. 

Sometimes you just need a new perspective.

 

✧

 

Kise’s schedule continues to be as punishing as promised and he finds that the one day he gets a few hours free, a few hours, holy shit, he honestly can’t make himself get out of bed. He’s been filming a commercial where he’s had to run shirtless through the forest, for heaven’s sake, promoting a brand of cologne that actually does smell wonderful. He just wished he didn’t have had to run when he was working on an insufficient amount of caloric intake and sleep. So the moment he’d gotten home, after however many different takes he’d had to do over, starting back and running back through the forest trying to look as confident and put together as possible, he’d decided that his schedule had opened like this very specifically for him to get some sleep. He hears his phone chirp with a text message but he just, honestly, cannot get up from his bed.

He had worn a black tank top to the shoot but had ripped it off the moment he stepped foot into his hotel room, hot from the activity and dying to feel the softness of his comforter and sheets against his bare skin. His deep blue jeans hang low on his hips, the waistband of his white boxer briefs peeking out. He’s about to slip right into a dream, preferably a recap from the last one he can remember, involving a lot of Aomine shirtless and on top of him and a lot of kissing action when he hears a knock on his door. He ignores it, feeling rude but just too damn tired to care. The knock comes again, a little more insistently.

“Thank you for your hard work, but I’m gonna have to ask you to come back later to clean the room. I’m sorry,” he drawls the last bit off, not even sure it was audible as his lips smear over his pillow, his eyes slipping shut. There’s a moment of silence and then some seriously loud, obnoxious knocking. Kise’s eyes shoot open and he swings up into a sitting position, feeling dizzy for a moment and having to steady himself as he gets to his feet. He’s barefoot and grumpy and seriously, seriously? This one brief period of time where he can just rest, and the hotel staff wants to have a hot second with him? Kise wonders what he’s done to deserve this torture.

He rests his head against the doorframe, ignoring the fact that the person is still knocking and it’s so loud. He yawns, scratches at his side lazily before opening the door and preparing to ask in his most polite, I-am-not-angry-I-am-concerned voice, what the hell is so important, when he stutters to a stop, body straightening instantly.

Aomine Daiki stands at his door, fist poised to do some more of that obnoxious knocking. His eyes flit over Kise’s bare chest, his defined abs, then over to the side, at the wall. He’s scowling, which isn’t anything new, but there’s a flush to his dark cheeks now that is very, very new. And interesting. Very interesting. Kise wishes that he’d had more of a mind to study that expression but he’s already exhausted and now he’s also stunned because Aomine is at his door, his room, and how did he even get there? It is not his birthday. And even if it had been, he knows Aomine would have never agreed to be his own private mail-order stripper. Probably.

“Uh,” he intones, elegant as the day he was born. Aomine’s fidgeting a little, his black jeans so tight Kise thinks he should start praying right that second. There’s a leather-bound satchel of some sort hanging from his shoulder. He’s wearing those ridiculous loafers that Kise finds so endearing and a graphic tee with the Terminator on it and bold white letters underneath that say Chill Out, Dickwad. Kise can appreciate his taste in movies a little more than his taste in shirts, but that’s so beside the point at the moment. Aomine reaches up to tug at the largest circular barbell in his ear, just once, and Kise wonders if that’s a nervous habit. The thought makes Kise want to smile, but then he remembers himself, remembers that he’s shirtless and his boxer briefs are hanging out and he’s making Aomine wait out in the hallway awkwardly.

“You can come in, if you want,” he says and wow, that was really smooth. He could smack his own forehead, he really ought to, but Aomine just dips his chin once and moves forward, hands falling to his sides, shoulders hunched forward. He takes in the hotel room, whistling appreciatively. The whistle surprises Kise, detracts his attention back to the very real and wonderful thing that is Aomine’s voice; silk shredded on asphalt, a blend that’s both unfathomably smooth and rough enough to grind down bone.

“Nice shirt.” Kise says as he walks up to him just this side of cautiously, wondering why in the world he’s even there. Kise’s bed is a mess, sheets and comforter thrown over one another in a giant tangle and there’s clutter on the ground, but Kise is too distracted by the line of Aomine’s shoulders from this close up to care. Aomine looks over his shoulder and Kise loses his breath at the smirk playing over his thin lips—the first of Aomine’s smirks that have ever been directed at Kise. He’s seen them before, sure, but never for him. Never for his benefit, or demise.

“Thanks.” He says and there’s this look in his eyes like he’s trying to work something out, but then he’s looking around the room again, trying to tug his huge hands in the tiny pockets of his black jeans. Kise wants to snort, knows that isn’t going to work out, but instead he remains quiet. It’s not exactly uncomfortable, but it’s not ideal.

“Do you want a glass of water? Or orange juice? I think that’s all I actually have.” He makes to move towards the kitchenette but Aomine just shakes his head, dismissing the offer. And then the silence returns and Kise feels like he’s aging at a faster pace than normal trying to interpret each movement Aomine makes, especially when his eyes land and remain on the tussled bed. Finally, Kise can’t stand it anymore, arms coming up to cross over his bare chest.

“So, hey, funny question, but what are you doing here?” Aomine breaks his stare from the bed and turns fully to Kise, the full force of those magnetic blue eyes drilling into his. Aomine tilts his head, remarkably animalistic, and frowns.

“Satsuki gave me your address. You could’ve told me you wanted a consultation last time you saw me. I understand that you’re busy, ya know, but I work around things like that when it’s important.” Aomine shrugs, as if admitting this isn’t a big deal. “And if you want a tattoo, that’s a pretty big deal. Pretty important.”

“A…tattoo.” Kise’s brain is still trying to catch up with the words that slipped from Aomine’s mouth, his expression twisted in confusion. Aomine looks at him like he’s caught something terrible and is possibly contagious, nodding slowly.

“Yeah. You told Satsuki you wanted me to do your first tattoo. She was so pissed, by the way. Totally thought her work would be the first on your skin.” And everything suddenly clicks and Kise’s heart races against his ribcage, his pulse pounding in his neck, his eyes wide. Momoi had lied to Aomine, told him that not only had Kise decided he was ready for his first tattoo, which he most certainly is not, and that he wanted Aomine to do it. That he wants Aomine’s work to be the first on his skin. And Aomine is smirking like that’s a victory, like that’s the fucking best thing Aomine’s heard in his life. Kise isn’t certain but he might be on a fast track to fainting, right here, just right in front of him. Before he can even gather enough of his voice to speak, Aomine continues on, either unaware of or unconcerned by the expression on Kise’s face.

“So, like I said. When it’s important, I work around my client’s schedule. And since I know how busy you are lately, I wanted to talk to you about availability. Of course, depending on the size and scale of the art, we might only have to schedule a few days. If you aren’t sure yet, we can discuss some options.”

At that moment, Kise is having a thorough conversation about options, albeit with himself. Here he stands, in his hotel room, shirtless, with the guy he’s in love with, totally and completely wrapped up in a lie of someone else’s conceiving. Simple enough.

He just doesn’t know what to do. He’s not usually one to fall into ridiculous clichés but right now all he can think as he reaches a hand up to clutch at his chest, fingertips scratching lightly against the skin over his heart, is that his mind and his heart are at war. He knows two things for sure: he is not ready to get a tattoo, and he wants nothing more than for Aomine to remain in his hotel room.

Finding middle ground for the disparity between those two things is a new ballgame altogether, but Kise can play ball with the best of them. He’d go so far as to say he can play hardball. His mind races as he almost mechanically gestures for Aomine to take a seat at the kitchenette’s mini bar, watches as he pulls out a barstool and those ultra tight jeans stretch over the curve of his ass. Kise swallows, taking his own barstool, scooting it in until his stomach touches the cold countertop. The shock of it against his skin has him startling, hopping away and off of his stool.

“I’m gonna put a shirt on, hold on one sec,” he mutters, turning and heading back into the main room. At least this distraction will give him a few more moments to think about what he is doing and what he’s going to have to do in the future because of it. By the time he’s pulled the black tank top over his head, all he’s managed to do is muss his hair so that it’s standing up in strange places but he’s too damn distracted to even notice. He trudges back into the kitchenette, hops onto the barstool, ignoring completely the look Aomine is giving him, blue eyes flickering up to the crown of blond hairs standing up in weird angles before a smirk spills across his mouth.

“Okay, what do you have for me?” Aomine turns to the satchel he’s deposited on the other side of him, opens it and pulls out a few sheets of sketching paper and a single black pen. He leaves the satchel open and Kise’s eyes, wide in surprise, scan over the hundreds of colored pencils and fine-tip markers within. They’re all secured and in color-coded order, a clash of several rainbows in every gradient of each color. If Aomine is as good as Kise knows him to be, he’ll be able to use all of those colors in any combination and make the work sing. He’s seen Aomine’s work, has looked through his portfolio once when Momoi was distracted and Wakamatsu was doing his pressure-poop in the back so he couldn’t yell at Kise for invasion of privacy. Kise has never seen more beautiful work in his life, not anywhere, and he is honestly saying that from a place of as little bias as he possibly can, given the fact that he is in love with the artist behind the work 

Aomine always seems to wear soul-sucking black, looking like Death personified, walking around collecting spirits. He is especially dark when standing next to Momoi, who seems to prefer pastels lately, and Wakamatsu, who favors one article of neon clothing in every outfit. Kise is a blended mixture, he knows, sometimes bright and colorful, sometimes toned-down and elegant, other times a full-out kitten sweater and koala socks extravaganza. He has no set pattern of style, just puts on what he likes and turns to see if the reflection pleases him or not. Right now he’s dressed more plainly than he has been in weeks, just jeans and a black tank, so simple he almost feels like a different person. He has no layers to snuggle into, or hide under. He feels exposed.

His apparent exposure doesn’t click any cogs into place, doesn’t bring him to an epiphany about what he needs to do in this situation, what he should do, but it is the thought that prefaces his decision this once. To anyone else it might seem like a careless decision, flippant and carefree, but Kise has already examined every consequence of it and agreed to the terms.

He is going to be selfish, just this once. He’s going to keep Aomine here, humor him somehow, for as long as he can manage. Just so that he can get a few hours alone with the man, who has never once accepted his and Momoi’s offers to go out with them. Someone Kise has never been able to get alone, either because at first he didn’t trust Kise, then when he was too lazy, and more accurate for now, he is just too busy. But now Kise has him, practically gift wrapped and sent straight to his door, and he isn’t going to waste their time together.

Kise only has a few more months left in Seattle, before he has to move on to the next big thing. That’s just how his life goes, sweeping him away from any place before he can get sufficiently entrenched in the culture of it, uprooted and thrown into a new culture to try to make heads turn once again. His clock is always ticking, he can hear each second like a gong in his mind, and it makes it all too clear how things will have to turn out eventually. He is going to go through with these consultations, spend the coveted time with Aomine he can’t even manage on his own, and then he’s going to have to tell Aomine it’s all been a farce. It’s either that or he tell him that he’s backing out of the tattoo, but that feels too much like giving up and running away which…he is. He will be running away.

Regardless, Aomine is going to be furious. So much of his time that Kise is planning on spending with him will be viewed as a wasted venture, time in which he could’ve been moving around actual important clients to help them out with the tattoos they were actually getting. Not being played by some superstar playboy who is holding a torch for him. He’ll have to take the fall alone, even if it had been Momoi who’d decided on her own that a direct attack was the next best thing for him. He doesn’t want her to get dragged into this.

He is fine with that, with taking all of the blame. He will be leaving afterwards, so he’ll have to break it off anyways, right? Except that breaking it off means a connection had to have been formed in the first place. Kise feels a headache coming on, smiling over at Aomine while he pushes a hand through one side of his hair, tugging slightly in the tangles. Now is not the time for his planning; now is the time for him to soak up every minute he gets to be alone with Aomine. It is also the time, he mentally groans, that he has to come up with this apparent first tattoo idea on the spot.

“How about robots?” he blurts, the hand that had been carding through his hair slipping down to rub the back of his neck as he glances at Aomine’s unresponsive face. Aomine only stares at him, pen poised over the paper, unmoving. Kise’s shaking his head, muttering under his breath about the idea being stupid, he’s right, totally right.

“Um, a kitten?” Kise tries weakly, squinting and looking over at Aomine through his bangs. Aomine glances away from him, down to his sketching paper, and then slowly sits up straight in his seat. Kise watches him take a deep breath, face still scrunched up because God he sounds like an idiot. Aomine is probably moments away from calling him out on what this clearly is: a waste of his time and energy and he is so going to leave. Kise’s expecting that, even sighs out a heavy breath when he sees Aomine’s muscles clench as if to lift him from his seat.

But he doesn’t get up, doesn’t leave; he just resituates himself and then turns back to Kise, eyes searching.

“I usually don’t like to offer ideas for first tattoos, they’re usually special. But if you really are lost here, and you want my help,” Aomine shrugs, eyes watchful. Kise meets his gaze, holds it, and knows that this is something he has to be careful with; especially because he likes Aomine enough that he doesn’t want to offend him. There’s something about the way Aomine is looking at him, a particular tilt of his brows and clench in his jaw that gives Kise the impression that his answer to this question could make or break their potentiality as a couple. If there even is potentiality, which Kise is sadly unsure of. When he responds at last, his voice is laced with certainty.

“No, it’s okay,” he refuses, tone steady and polite. He’s nodding his head just slightly, to himself, already having accepted that he’s going to approach this seriously. It isn’t going to pan out, he is going to leave them all here in Seattle in a few months, he cannot get a tattoo because of his career, but there is nothing holding Kise back from describing the one idea he’s always wanted for his first tattoo. He wonders if Aomine will think it’s stupid, but finds that for once he actually doesn’t care what Aomine might think of it. He knows that it’s the only possible option for his first tattoo, knows that it would feel right seeped into his skin.

“I’ll stop joking around. I…know what I want.” After a long moment, Aomine nods his head, waiting him out. Kise takes a breath and releases it along with the tension in his shoulders.

“I used to have this picture.” He starts, chewing on his lip for a moment. “It’s a picture of my parents and I standing on a beach in front of the sunset. We had a stranger take it. The sunset, it was the most beautiful sky I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“That’s awesome,” Aomine’s nodding his head and he isn’t actually smiling, but it’s a close thing. Kise grins back at him, eyes soft.

“Um, the only thing is that I don’t have the picture anymore. I kept it in one of my apartments when I was staying in New York. But, uh, my place was actually robbed once. I think I was so exhausted I forgot to lock the door on my way out, stupid right? So when I got home, almost everything was gone. Even…the pictures.” Kise feels the familiar tug of guilt in his gut, the unshed tears he won’t allow forward.

“That fucking sucks.” Aomine’s voice is strained, angry, but he seems to pull it back under his air of professionalism, tucking it away for now. Kise appreciates that.

“Do you have another copy? Your parents got one we could borrow?” Aomine is leaning back into his satchel of rainbows, running his fingertips over prospective colors, wondering which ones he’ll need for this particular sunset. Kise swallows.

“No, and they passed, actually.” Kise has gotten so used to this that when Aomine turns back to him, eyes stricken, he knows that he’s going to apologize. And Kise doesn’t mind, really, he doesn’t get tired of hearing it, of responding with a gentle yeah. He’s the type of person who experiences things close to the chest, unable to lock his passion and his empathy away. His parents had died when he was still young, one right after the other, both sick but with different bugs.

His mother had passed first, with breast cancer. And his father followed her soon after, with a broken heart. That was honestly how it had gone. Of course his father had been old but he truly just had not been able to live without his love in his life, made himself sick from her absence. The few who knew about it had told him it was romantic, but Kise didn’t much like to hear it. Anything that had the power to zap the life right out of you like that was dangerous, frightening. Kise isn’t sure he wants to know that kind of attachment, regardless of how powerful their connection had been, built on a foundation of true love he rarely saw any more.

That love had still left him on his own.

“Sorry,” Aomine mumbles, a little awkwardly. Kise smiles.

“Kind of a lost cause, then, huh?” He already feels like an idiot for bringing it up, wondering why he ever thought to in the first place. Obviously Aomine can’t do anything about a picture that’d been stolen several years ago, but Kise just can’t let it go that easily. He doesn’t want any other tattoo to be his first, even if he isn’t really getting this tattoo, it still matters to him, for some reason he can’t pin down in words. He worries his lip again, wondering what else he can tell Aomine that will suffice as a fake first tattoo. He hears Aomine make a noise in the back of his throat, indiscernible to Kise’s ears, but when he looks over he finds an appraising, challenging look, raised eyebrow and all.

Aomine says, “Do you have that shitty a memory?”

Kise blinks. “What?”

“Describe it to me, the scene. The layout. What you want tattooed on you. Either you have a seriously shitty memory or you are underestimating my ability to be awesome as hell, and both of those options piss me off.”

“I remember,” Kise laughs, eyes fiery and resolute. Aomine picks the pen back up but holds it differently than before, and Kise takes a moment to wonder if he writes differently than he sketches and how weird that seems to him when he meets those piercing blue eyes once more and realizes it’s time for him to describe the picture. So he does, in exquisite detail, closing his eyes to better see everything.

“The picture had all three of us in front of the sunset, but I only want the sunset. I can remember our faces perfectly, the way they’d held me between them, just a toddler, so happy. My mom was laughing in the photograph, and her head was thrown to the side slightly, eyes closed with her one of a kind smile on her face. My dad had been smiling over at her with his head knocking against mine. I’d been laughing, too.” He shakes his head, laughs when he realizes he’s just told Aomine he doesn’t want the focus to be on his family, but had gone right ahead to describing it. Aomine has a strange expression on his face, a blended mix of regret and gentleness Kise doesn’t quite understand. His pen is still poised to write.

“Ah, well. The sunset, then.” And he goes into the most meticulous detail he can manage, explaining each color with several words before moving on to the next one, explaining how the sky blended together just so, how the clouds seemed to glow. He doesn’t know how long he talks, eyes closed, picturing it all, listening to the scratches of Aomine’s pen against the paper, taking diligent notes, before he finishes. Aomine is still writing even after there is silence, drawing lines here and there, making extra bullet points, his beautiful hands squaring away every single detail he’s been given like they are treasures to covet. When he is finally done, he simply looks back over at Kise and smirks.

“Bitchin,” he says, and Kise snorts out a laugh. And then before he can blink Aomine is turning to him, his stoicism completely thrown out the window. When he speaks, there’s passion in his eyes, in his words, and he talks with his hands and he keeps looking back at the picture and smiling and it’s all Kise can do not to lean forward, just those scant few inches between them, and kiss him. He hears the wind howling against the window, feels the cold bite of the air breeze over his skin. He pinches his leg, hard, and reminds himself to stay focused.

“I want to make it perfect. I want to nail these colors. It takes me a little longer than usual whenever I want to make my own blends, shit’s not easy, but this is fucking awesome. These colors,” he says, gesturing to neatly scrawled notes that detail the fiery blends of gold to rust to scarlet on the horizon that made it look like the world was on fire, the few clouds overhead that had been a blaring red. How the fiery hues became a softened pink when they met the clouds, and then a lavender blend that faded out into the last remnants of a true blue sky.

“I have to make them just right.” Aomine’s practically shaking as his right hand traces over the remaining blank surface of his sketching paper, off to the side of his notes, as if he already knows exactly where he’s going to put his marks, which colors he’s going to press into where. He turns abruptly back to Kise, blue eyes on fire, not saying a word to explain it away. There’s a rush in Kise’s mind, almost a physical force, that’s telling him that this is a bad idea, a terrible decision. But it’s overpowered by the pounding of his heart when he glances over Aomine’s notes, how clear and detailed they are, and he knows that he needs to see this come to life under Aomine’s masterful hands.

They stare at each other, barely moving, barely breathing. Kise doesn’t even know what time it is, how long they’ve been sitting together in his hotel room, whether or not he was missing his next scheduled appointment and honestly? He could not care less. He prefers sitting here motionless staring into blue fire, flickering up to the barbell through Aomine’s eyebrow, wondering what noise if any Aomine would make if Kise pulled on it with his teeth. Aomine’s eyes when Kise comes back to them are tracing Kise’s lips and he’s not certain whether or not he’s imagining the desire in them when they return to his or not. He watches Aomine realize what he’s been staring at, what his eyes have been tracing, and Kise watches the exact moment when the spell between them breaks.

“So, yeah. This is a really awesome idea.” Aomine says, clearing his throat and looking away. He gathers his things, pulls his phone out of his jeans and checks the time before cursing under his breath. He glances up at Kise as he throws the strap of his satchel over his shoulder, nodding his head once and saying, “I’m so fucking late. Fuck.”

Kise follows him to the door, holds it open after he’s gone through. Aomine pauses in the hallway, turns jerkily back to look at Kise. Tilting his head in question, Kise rests against the doorframe, watches as Aomine’s lips curl up in a smirk.

“I’m gonna make this bomb as hell, Kise.” And then he’s waving a hand over his shoulder, striding down the hallway, taking Kise’s heart right along with him. 

That was the first time Aomine had ever said Kise’s name.

 

✧

 

Two weeks later, Kise sits inside The Bakery talking to Kagami on his break. Kise is still all dolled-up from the photoshoot he’d come from, his eyes emphasized with a magnificent shade of teal liner and his hair parted neatly at the side. The suit he’s wearing keeps him warm from the brisk weather but it also makes him stand out like a sore thumb, incurring several people to recognize him even easier than normal since his public persona wore suits far more often than he did off-camera. He doesn’t mind, however. He enjoys interacting with people and learning small bits and pieces about them when they share, even when Kagami is sitting there staring at him with a raised brow the whole time. Momoi had explained who Kise was to him ages ago but it never ceases to amaze him that Kise is, like, an actual famous person.

Kagami is so down to earth he doesn’t even make a big deal out of Kise’s career or status, though he isn’t apathetic to it either. He’s genuinely interested, impressed, and sometimes he even looks a little proud.

“I’ll never get over that,” Kagami says as three young ladies prance off, laughing happily over the autographed pictures in their hands. Kise doesn’t really want to know how they’d had those pictures on them, whether they’d known somehow that he was going to be here before he even knew, or if they just carried the pictures around for the hell of it. Sometimes it is better to just leave certain thoughts alone.

“I’m so lucky,” Kise agrees, shaking his head with a smile. “I can’t believe it sometimes, either.”

Kagami snorts. “It ain’t luck.”

“Have you ever even seen my work?” Kise eyes him speculatively, smirking. But then Kagami surprises him by smirking back and nodding his head, beefy arms crossed over an equally strapping chest.

“I have actually. Kuroko showed me. You kind of rock.” He shrugs again, careless, but his eyes light up with a sudden realization. “Have you ever considered doing food commercials? Dude, you totally could. You could sell food! But not like how I sell food. You just do your thing, but this time, with food. Muffins. Cakes. Burgers.” Kise’s laughing before Kagami’s even finished, bringing a hand up in front of his mouth. The Bakery is always loud, but Kagami speaks in a tone that rises over everything, easily distinguishable. Kise isn’t sure his laughter is piercing through the pop music playing over the speakers, but it’s apparent that Kagami’s voice had been loud enough for his boyfriend to find him through the crowd. One moment it’s just Kise and Kagami in the booth and then a blink and Kuroko is nestled into Kagami’s side, greeting Kise politely.

“Kurokocchi,” he greets with a delighted smile. Kagami automatically wraps an arm around Kuroko’s shoulders, pulling him in so that he can press a kiss to the top of his bed head. Regardless of the fact that it was almost one in the afternoon, Kise is certain that Kuroko has just woken up and literally rolled out of bed before coming here. Kuroko tilts his head up and stares at Kagami, one hand coming up to grasp his boyfriend’s shirt lightly.

“Kagami-kun, milkshakes?” Kagami nods instantly, looking at the clock and saying something about his break being over anyways. He nudges the smaller of the two out of the booth and heads back into the kitchen, where there is a secret milkshake machine that only special guests are aware of. Kise had been informed of its presence a little over a month into his stay, though he had politely turned down the offer Kuroko made for one of Kagami’s famous vanilla milkshakes. Kise had asked what made a plain vanilla milkshake special enough to be famous, but Kuroko had merely stared at him with those piercing eyes, slurping on his straw.

“So, what’ve you been up to Kurokocchi?” Kise settles forward onto the tabletop, resting his chin on his intertwined hands. Kuroko shrugs, his eyes watchful.

“I saw Aomine-kun earlier.” Is what he chooses to say, and Kise pretends like his heart doesn’t pick up pace, like his face doesn’t brighten like a Saturday morning.

“Hm,” he hums, feigning disinterest. He hasn’t contacted Aomine since they’d last been in his hotel room, has maybe sort of been avoiding him. Even in the shop when he visits everyone he tries not to meet Aomine’s eyes, tries not to be caught alone with him. He’d felt Aomine looking at him on more than one occasion, but he is so not ready to examine that.

Momoi is ticked off, constantly hounding him and asking why he isn’t pursuing the shit out of Aomine like he’d been so intent on from the first time he’d met the man. Especially since she’d drawn first blood, had stepped out of her usual subversive planning and made direct moves to get he and Aomine alone. He doesn’t want her to think that her efforts had been unappreciated, or worse, wasted, but it’s hard to explain his reasons for avoiding Aomine. Reasons like the fact that he’s going to be leaving soon, like the fact that he’s having Aomine draw up a very intimate tattoo on a whim, one that he isn’t even going to get put on his body. Reasons like he’s feeling a little burnt out, a little raw.

He doesn’t know why all the sudden his sunny disposition is taking hits like a deadbeat boxer, but there it is. He's questioning himself at every turn, even in his profession, and he feels like he isn’t quite certain how he should act in any given situation. It still hasn’t occurred to him that natural is an available option.

“He’s at the shop all day today. Something about waiting around for an important client.” Kuroko continues, as if Kise’s quiet hum of forced interest hasn’t deterred him in the slightest from bringing Aomine up.

“He’s been busy lately,” Kise admits, even while he realizes he has no way of knowing that for sure, not anymore, not since he hasn’t seen him in weeks. Kuroko is still staring at him, hasn’t really changed expressions at all, but there’s something about his gaze that looks sharper, dangerous. Kise isn’t an idiot, regardless of how Wakamatsu insisted that someone as beautiful as Kise could not also be intelligent, because apparently that is just too cruel. Kise knows what Kuroko is trying to do. And it seems that he’s tired of the games, of the false interest Kise has been putting on. Kise wonders if he’d sent Kagami for that shake simply for this reason; so that he could lay it all out on Kise, tell him what he’s doing is stupid.

“I’m going to see him,” Kise says, defensive.

“Soon.” Kuroko intones quietly.

“Totally soon.” Before Kuroko can call Kise on his bullshit, because that’s what that promise is, complete bullshit, Kagami comes walking back through the dancing mass, skirting the edges with his tray held overhead with one hand, balance perfect. He settles it in the crook of his elbow and hands Kuroko his vanilla shake and then surprisingly he settles another shake in front of Kise. He frowns at it, glancing from Kuroko’s unchanging eyes to Kagami’s overly intent expression as he scratches at some peeling paint along the side of the booth.

“I don’t drink milkshakes, remember? Especially not strawberry…” he reminds them, tone confused and slowly growing more and more distrustful. It was the way that Kagami wouldn’t meet his eyes, the way he was fidgeting almost nervously that set Kise on their path. He connects the dots and knows instantly Kagami is in on Kuroko’s meddling, knows exactly what is going on right now. Kise’s eyes fly to Kuroko, expression resigned, already knowing what he is going to say.

“Aomine-kun does.”

And Kuroko smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the wonderful responses to the first chapter! You are all so sweet and encouraging :')


	3. Chapter 3

Kise stands outside of The Zone for fifteen minutes, long enough for Aomine’s shake to melt into a thin, watery substance that Kise decides isn’t worth much at all anymore, and promptly disposes of it. He decides that he’ll just have to buy him a new one. And besides, isn’t the cardinal rule of people entering tattoo shops that food and drink are definitely, without a doubt, not allowed? Were Kagami and Kuroko trying to get him thrown out?

He taps his foot nervously. He is still wearing his suit, looking far too dressed up to step foot in a tattoo shop and look like he belongs there and boy were his friends there going to have the time of their lives ripping him apart because of it. He cracks a smile at that, shaking his head at the look he can imagine spreading over Wakamatsu’s face. But then he’s picturing skin in a darker tone, eyes that aren’t brown but blue. He wonders what expression Aomine would make, seeing him all dressed up with his hair slicked to the side, eyes accentuated by a makeup artist’s talented hand. He shakes his head as if to forcefully knock the image from his mind, rubbing his free hand back and forth against his pant leg.

He sees something move from the corner of his eye, squints at the tinted windows of The Bakery and scowls. Either Kagami and Kuroko are watching him stand there like an idiot or maybe someone accidentally brushed against the front glass plane. Yeah, the latter didn’t convince Kise either. He scuffs his shoe on the pavement, twisting away so that his face isn’t visible to anyone watching on from The Bakery.

He could just not go and return to his room instead but that felt like running and Kise just isn’t for it. He wonders if Kagami or Kuroko have called Aomine and told him to be expecting a shake, wonders if they might’ve told him that Kise is going to deliver it. He wants nothing more than to walk right in there and talk to Aomine like he had when he’d first met him, back when he was fervently trying to get to know him and to let Aomine get to know him in return. He wants to return to his buoyant, sunny personality, regardless of his misconceptions and his worries about the future.

There is also that whole thing where Aomine went out of his way to help him, going so far as making a house call, and Kise had returned the favor by avoiding him for weeks. That is probably something he is going to have to apologize for, though he doubts he’ll get Aomine’s forgiveness easily. But even still, that shouldn’t affect him so much that he can’t rekindle his positive attitude, can’t smile and laugh at the small things like he usually would.

And—why can’t he? What is stopping him from acting that way, acting normally? So what if he is going to be leaving soon, so what if he is going to have to offer some serious explanations to a person he admires and respects? That didn’t mean he has to lose himself in the process. Feeling reenergized, Kise raises his chin and struts right into The Zone.

He greets Midorima with so much cheer that the man actually swallows his saliva wrong and chokes; recovering enough to grunt, “Leave.” Kise just hums as he passes, saying hey to the friends he has dispersed throughout the shop, and winking at a surprised Wakamatsu, who drops all of the blank sketching paper he is carrying at the sight of it. Kise doesn’t dwell on it, walks past him with a repentant look and laughs quietly when he hears the exclamation from over his shoulder.

“Motherfucker.”

Kise heads towards Momoi’s station first, looking to kiss her on the cheek in greeting, but before he can even head towards her area Imayoshi is chiming in from the other side of the room.

“She’s not here today. Day off.” There’s a smug look on his face like he knows more than he should and it gives Kise a sinking feeling in his gut.

“Oh, all right. Thanks.” He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t show any indecision. He heads straight towards the back, to the only section of the shop that is bright enough it might glow at night. Kise glances over the framed art on the walls, seeing familiar works, all incredible, before turning and meeting Aomine’s steely eyes, his lips an open sneer.

Yeah. He is going to have to work really hard for his forgiveness.

“Hey,” he says, not stepping into Aomine’s station even though he doesn’t currently have a client. He is cleaning just about everything, the entire corner smelling of disinfectant. He rests his hip against the edge of one of Aomine’s tables, careful not to knock against anything or even put much weight on it.

“So, I’m sorry I haven’t come by in a while. I’ve been busy, but, yeah, you’re right, that’s no excuse.” At the dangerous glint in Aomine’s eyes, Kise is reminded of how he had deliberately taken the time from his own busy schedule to come to Kise’s hotel room and sit with him for hours working on his fake first tattoo idea. He feels like the biggest jerk in the world, and tells Aomine so without much reserve.

“I was such a jerk and you were so sweet, you did so much for me you didn’t have to, it was super kind of you, and—“

Aomine cuts a look at him, almost as if he’s shocked, but mostly just wants Kise to shut the hell up. Kise shuts up. He brings his hands up to fiddle with his cuffs, then his lapels. He can feel Aomine’s eyes on him, but Kise continues to look at the ground, sunny disposition taking a mini vacation while he gets his thoughts together.

From what he’s seen in the shop since he’d gotten there so many weeks ago, Aomine is terrible at holding grudges. He is always angry at somebody but usually too lazy to do anything about it unless they get rambunctious, in which case he goes from angry to terrifying in a second.

Kise can still remember when a client had come in reeking of liquor and started calling Midorima some pretty awful names, unprovoked. Kise had stood immediately from within Momoi’s section, ready to escort the man back outside and call a cab for him. But before he could even take a step, Aomine had been a flicker of black passing right by his shoulder, hand already fisted in the man’s shirt and lifting him off the ground. He’d growled, actually growled in the man’s face, something biting and vicious and effective. He pushed the front door open and literally threw the man onto the pavement, snapping something both violent and promising after him before coming back in, unruffled. He’d headed back to his station without another word, without even a glance in Kise’s direction. No one had said anything, either, had merely continued working. When Kise had moved to ask Momoi about it, she’d shushed him, a gentle hand landing on his side as a means to promise a future explanation.

The future explanation had been a whirlwind of pre-teen beat downs and teenage fights that resulted in more broken bones than Kise would’ve liked to have imagined. Apparently, Aomine was incredibly protective of his loved ones, to the extent that he had been thrown in jail before because of one such protective episode. Momoi had shaken her head sadly, swallowing heavily around some personal information she didn’t feel comfortable imparting, even to Kise. She’d said it was Aomine’s to tell, if that was what he wanted.

Suffice to say, Aomine means business when it comes to respect—for himself, his work, and his loved ones. Kise has somehow hit a tripwire and is now scrambling for purchase, trying to find solid ground beneath his feet. He doesn’t even know what more he needs to apologize for, or how long it will take for this anger to subside. He’s having nightmarish predictions of Aomine roughly pushing him up against the brick wall in the back alley and then he’s sort of liking it when he hears a gentle sigh, eyes coming back to reality in time to see Aomine glaring at him.

His heart feels like it is in his feet and he wonders if maybe his daydream is about to become reality when Aomine just leans down, scrambles around under his main desk, and comes back up with a medium-sized tube. He approaches Kise and the table he is resting against, popping the top off the tube and sliding a rolled up paper out along the flat surface of the tabletop. His hands are so gentle as they unroll the sheet and set paperweights down against the edges that Kise makes a tiny noise in his throat, though luckily he is the only person to hear it. He’s too distracted to look at the revealed artwork, is still staring at Aomine’s face, his beautiful profile, the crooked edge of his sharp nose, the piercings adorning his ear, the bulge of his Adam’s apple and the way it bobs when he swallows.

He glances down the side of Aomine’s body to his ridiculously skimpy muscle tank, black of course, covering little more than a few inches of his waist. With his body being exposed up close to Kise for the first time since they’d met, Kise is able to get a good enough glimpse to see that Aomine’s body is covered in tattoos, though that’s hardly surprising. His abs are defined like marble and there is a massive inked panther curled around his side, from hip to the bottom of his back, detailed in a way that Kise instantly knows that it is Momoi’s work.

Just above the panther is a splash of color so vibrant Kise is reminded of sunshine reflected on the ocean, of schools of bright orange fish and fields of wildflowers. All he can distinguish is a the combination of a watery background of milky blue with nearly fluorescent, massive flowers spanning from his back, upper ribcage, and one flower on the entirety of his right peck. He can see the beautiful blue of the water spreading up to his shoulder and the right sleeve he had finally connected with the pieces Kise is seeing now. His arm is a tangle of these same flowers, but with more of the deep green leaves and stems. His entire right bicep is a splash of water with a magnificently detailed Kumonryu Koi fish swimming up onto the beginning of his shoulder, in shades of red and pink and magenta. Kise feels like he is going to faint if he doesn’t get to press his lips to the scales, to the majestic curve of the fins and the realistic curl of the waves splashing over onto his back.

Aomine shifts and the light must catch it just right because the new angle instantly showcases the barbell that is very clearly pierced through Aomine’s nipple. Kise’s breath pushes right out of him at the discovery and he has to turn slightly so that he doesn’t embarrass himself—his face and ears are burning. He’s in shock, absolute shock, though he has no idea why he is actually surprised.

Aomine has a pierced nipple. Kise wants to know instantly if the other is pierced too, if he has his nipples pierced, holy shit, and even more pressing than the need to know is the need to see them clearly, not in the shadow cast by his stupid muscle tank, not in the dull lighting of Aomine’s section when he isn’t with a client.

Aomine’s hand comes up and gently grasps Kise’s chin, first bringing his gaze back up to his blue eyes, which look both concerned and dangerous, but not dangerous in a death and dying sort of way, but in a way that is much more interesting to Kise, especially in this moment, but then his chin is being directed down to the spread sheet and—

“Holy shit,” Kise whispers, eyes going wide and breath leaving him for the second time in so many seconds, only this time it isn’t because of Aomine, at least not directly.

Kise is looking down at his memory. He can see his parents and their smiles and him nestled between their bodies in his head, can see how they fit against the span of the painting Aomine has created for him. The colors, they are all gorgeous and vibrant and as close to the reality Kise remembers that he can’t even hold back the tears that fill his eyes. He pulls himself away, carefully, both from the table and Aomine’s light hold on his chin. The tears are already leaving trails down his cheeks, falling from the edge of his chin, and he doesn’t want them to fall onto the painting because it is everything.

“Y-you,” he stutters, ripping his eyes from the painting for just a second to take in the softness of Aomine’s expression, the proud slash of his smirk and the significance of how his eyes are gleaming right then—as if he knows how much this means to Kise, knows it sincerely, and appreciates that he could give this to him. Kise doesn’t want to ruin this atmosphere with unwanted touching, especially when he isn’t even sure he is one hundred percent forgiven, though this and Aomine’s softened expression are pretty clear, but he wants nothing more than to nestle right into the curve of Aomine’s neck, press his nose and lips there and whisper a thank you. Instead, he grips his own elbows tightly, laughing at himself and the tears streaming down his face. He looks up at Aomine and feels blinded by the light he sees there, by how bright the air around the taller man is.

He tries to get a hold on his voice, not wanting it to tremble when he says, “Thank you. Thank you so much, it’s perfect. It’s…”

“Everything.” Aomine finishes, nodding his head when Kise’s eyes flash back to his, acknowledging the truth of it. Kise isn’t even going to hang on to the strangeness of having Aomine understand his intimate thoughts and what that might mean in regards to their connection. He is too affected by the painting, wants to run his fingertips over it and relive the laughter from the moment it was taken.

After a few moments of relative quiet, besides the consistent whirring of tattoo machines, chatter, and the overhead music playing something smooth and low by The National, Aomine clears his throat.

“If there’s anything you want to change, any of the colors not fitting how you remember them—“

“No,” Kise says, immediate. He flushes, abashed. “No, it’s perfect.”

Aomine bobs his head once, accepting. He’s confident enough in his work to not question it further, his smirk shifting in a way that makes it more of a smile. He’s looking at Kise like he’s the sun reflecting on the waves of the tide and Kise feels the world might be spinning right out from under him.

“Alright, I’ll only need one more day where I can sit down and scale it. I had to paint it, it wouldn’t leave my head, it was like I was there.” He smiles at Kise and he feels like his knees are no longer strong enough to support the weight of him, not under the gentle gleam in those eyes or the genuine smile directed at him. “But obviously I can’t transfer this over to your skin. Obviously.”

“Right. Right, of course.” Kise responds, and just like that he is reminded of the fact that he is going to have to reject this work of art from touching his skin. And now, seeing how much care has been put into the painting, he feels like it is so, so much worse than what he’d originally imagined. This isn’t just some piece of art, some idea, some significant moment for just a random client. This is a work of art that Aomine had spent precious time pouring himself into, something he had treated so carefully and handled so meticulously because he thought it was going to be forever inked into Kise’s skin, his friend’s skin. There is no apathy in the strokes of gold that blend into the rust and the scarlet. There is only care. The clouds, they are even glowing.

This is an experience, a gift that Aomine wants to share with him. Intimate like a touch, permanent like time.

And Kise is going to have to tell him that he can’t have it.

Swallowing heavily and feeling like he’s going to throw up, Kise listens to Aomine explain that the original size Kise had chosen for it would look better if it was just slightly bigger, and Kise trusts him. Tells him so. Watches the surprise flicker in those deep blue eyes and feels like he is twisting the knife further in Aomine’s back. He is going to be sick.

“This is going to be so fucking awesome,” Aomine concludes, stretching. He’s smiling and there are no walls up to block Kise from his emotions and he’s been waiting for this moment for months but all he can think about is how disappointed Aomine is going to be in him, how he might not even want to see or talk to him again, and he has to get out of there. He can’t look Aomine in the eyes.

“You’re right, totally.” His voice doesn’t change, doesn’t shake, but his hands do. He knows that Aomine notices and hopes that he thinks it’s a side effect of Kise’s reaction to the painting as he lifts his phone from his pocket and checks the time. 

“Well, I’ve got to head out. Got another meeting in a bit. Thanks again for—for doing this. I really appreciate your time and…all the effort you’ve put into this. For me.” Kise feels like a worm, slimy and seditious and somehow belonging amongst dirt. Aomine doesn’t even realize it, doesn’t realize that Kise’s apologizing in the cover of compliments, and just tilts his head, cheeks flushed slightly, nodding like it’s not a big deal, like he hasn’t done something incredible just for Kise. The brightness of his eyes fades slightly, still vibrant and so blue Kise can drown in them, but he still looks far too pleased for Kise to deserve to stay around him. He lifts a hand, thanking him again, and practically runs out of The Zone.

 

✧

 

Kise does not go into hiding (again).

He really doesn’t. He just kind of mopes around his hotel room during the hour of free time he has before his next photoshoot. He is actually really excited about this shoot; he’s familiar with the designer and he adores the glimpse he’d gotten of the line earlier in the week. There are a lot of dark colors, very grayscale, and mostly made up of sweaters and coats and even a few leather biking jackets. He’s been informed that there is to be no makeup or hair stylist, that each model is supposed to be unique except for the shoes, which are the same pair with every outfit. Kise is used to makeup and hair styles that he has to scrub from his skin and scalp, finding traces of glitter and gel flakes even days after he’s showered them off. It‘s refreshing to have such a simple yet elegant show planned.

He’d called Momoi and asked if she wanted to drop by and watch, only to have her groan in his ear, telling him that her schedule was packed tight and that he really should’ve told her earlier because she wanted desperately to see him in action. She hinted at it often enough that he was more than aware that if she didn’t get to see one of his shoots before he left, he might leave in pieces. Not that she knew he was leaving any time soon, or at all. He’s not going to think about it.

The shoot went without a hitch. Kobori had been so pleased with his performance that he’d cancelled and rescheduled his evening dinner with a prospective photographer. He is officially a free bird and strangely, he isn’t even tired. He's energized. He decides right then and there that he is going out tonight and he doesn’t even care if Momoi won’t dance with him the whole time like she generally did—she is a phenomenal dancer, so dancing beside her makes the night even more fun than usual—he’s perfectly fine with dancing his ass off all night long, by himself, in a thriving mass of strangers.

He texts her something vaguely threatening but mostly impressive, if he does say so himself, and Momoi seems to agree. She compliments his assertiveness and accepts the invite as well as promising to wrangle as many of her coworkers as she can. They set a time and a place and promise to meet outside of Foundation Nightclub, Momoi’s favorite place to visit if she’s feeling like a dancing queen. Kise appreciates the decision, since he, too, is feeling like a dancing queen. He’s going to dance so hard tonight, so his outfit is a lot more tame and comfortable than his usual M.O.

He tucks a plain deep gray T-shirt into some classic waist black skinny jeans and adds dress suspenders that button into the hem as an afterthought. He slips plain black ankle socks on and finishes the look with his favorite pair of classic three-hole patent Doc Martens, which are acid pink, of course. He doesn’t do a thing to his hair; lets it fall around his face in the leftover tussled design that he’d styled it into for his earlier photoshoot.

He texts Wakamatsu—he’d gotten his number from Momoi since Wakamatsu absolutely refused to give it to him, and even then Momoi had explained the only reason she’d gotten his number was because all employees at The Zone were required to have each others’ numbers—and sends him nonstop pictures of cute fuzzy baby animals he finds online until the other blond finally agrees to go clubbing with them if the pictures will just stop, when Momoi’s “I’m leaving now!” text interrupts the last image he’d been preparing to send, (an absolute avalanche of kittens).

Kise responds immediately, enthusiastically, an added bounce in his step as he heads out of his room and into the chilly night air.

 

✧

 

Kise is the first person to make it to the club, already filled to bursting and with a line of people curving all the way around the corner. The bass from inside is so loud Kise can already feel his ears beginning to ring and it makes adrenaline begin to course through his system. He’s shivering, standing out under a streetlight playing on his phone, checking his blogs and replying to some of his fan’s comments when a cab pulls up and Momoi, Wakamatsu, Midorima, and a short guy with black hair and beautiful eyes that Kise has noticed around The Zone’s front desk a few times step onto the curb. He’s never been introduced, but the moment the guy, a Takao Kazunari, greets him with a hearty shake and a smirk and he sees Midorima reach up to shift his glasses further up his nose, a light flush to his cheeks, Kise just knows.

Akashi and his friend are the last two to come out of the taxi van. Akashi steps out with as much grace as someone walking the red carpet, looking as majestic as always. He turns back towards the car and Kise watches as a small brunette guy steps out, looking nervous and jittery and a little like he’d eaten something that’s now disagreeing with his stomach. He’s actually quivering, though it might be from the cold, Kise isn’t quite sure.

Akashi catches the curious expression on his face and the way he keeps flickering his gaze back and forth between the two of them, of course he does. The smile falls away and his stoicism reigns supreme once again, but the slightly shorter presence at his side seems calmer already, more comfortable now that he’s not crammed inside of a taxi.

“Furihata-kun, this is Kise Ryouta.” Akashi gestures to him, cordial as ever and the brunette at his side looks up at him and shrinks away a bit, though his smile is genuine and his expression is open.

“Nice to meet you! I’m Furihata Kouki.” And he reaches out a hand to meet Kise’s in a surprisingly strong shake. Kise’s brows hitch up and he accepts his introduction graciously, even more curious about how they’d met now that he’s getting more expressions from Furihata and, by association, a better reading of what kind of person he is. Akashi studies his expression with something Kise can’t distinguish flitting across his eyes, a reminder that Akashi is one of the most difficult people for Kise to read.

Momoi takes the moment to leap at him, arms wrapping around him and chattering excitedly in his ear. Her makeup is on point, lips a deep red and winged liner sleek and accented with a shadowy finish. She’s wearing a pair of dark wash boyfriend jeans, black suede Louboutin pumps, and a loose burgundy crop top with her bright pink hair falling in boundless spirals. She looks effortlessly glamorous, standing out from most of the waist-high skirts that are currently trending. Kise gives her outfit an approving look, complimenting her when she flips her hair and turns her right leg as if to show off her favorite pumps. Kise knows she must’ve worked hard to be able to purchase them, must’ve spent several paychecks at least.

Wakamatsu is dressed like he could not care less about dancing, or even being out in public, in a pair of ratty dark wash blue jeans and a graphic tee that simply says, Nope in bold white font. It might even be comic sans, Kise isn’t sure considering that the other blond is turned away from him, scowling at some teenagers across the street trying to count their cash out.

He glances over at Midorima and feels his eyebrows inch up in surprise, taking in the tight black t-shirt and the red plaid long sleeve tied around his waist over a pair of stylish black skinny jeans, tucked neatly into a pair of black floral Doc Martens that he’d laced up completely.

“Dude,” Kise breathes, smile genuine and eyes alight as they trail up from Midorima’s feet, over the length of him, up to his slicked-back green hair. His arms are covered in black and gray tattoos, though not enough to be called complete sleeves just yet. He usually wears long sleeves to work, though Kise doesn’t know why he ever would, not with arms that were as defined as his. “You look amazing.”

“Doesn’t he?” Takao pipes in before Midorima can even open his mouth to respond, jerking a thumb at his date pointedly. Midorima merely sighs, pushing his glasses up his patrician nose once more, skin lightly flushed. Takao is wearing an assortment of neon shades that are almost glow-in-the dark, his shoes the only item that blend into the night. Kise glances at the cab, seeing if anyone else is inside and feeling disappointed when he finds no one. Momoi is already heading over to the line since she apparently knows the guy guarding the door, Takao trailing after her. Midorima scrapes by Kise’s shoulder, barely even touching him.

“There’s another cab coming,” he says lowly, glancing over his shoulder to make sure that Kise knows that he is talking to him. “They’re going to be a little late. They had to close the shop.”

And then he’s gone, hands tucked into his pockets and head held high as he catches up to Takao. The shorter man slips a hand through Midorima’s elbow and chatters excitedly up at him, grin wide and so happy Kise smiles in response as he begins to trail after them. He wonders if Aomine is going to be in that cab, though he doubts it. He has yet to accept any of their invitations to join them out dancing or even for dinner, so there is really no reason for him to change his mind now. Kise picks up his pace and smiles apologetically when Momoi turns over her shoulder and gestures insistently for him to get to her. He thanks the bouncer, who does a double take when he sees him, the flash of recognition in his eyes unmistakable. Kise smiles shyly, moving past him as he hears him fall back into his role, snapping at someone who’d been trying to sneak in behind Kise and telling them he wasn’t going to deal with any more monkey business.

The moment they walk into the place Momoi reaches back and grasps Midorima’s hand, who in turn grasps Takao’s, who grasps Kise’s with a wink thrown over his shoulder. Kise looks back for Akashi and Furihata, reaching out to empty space when he sees them easily making their way through the crowds with Akashi in the lead.

They work as an unbreakable chain, cutting through the massively overpopulated interior of the place with, predictably, a remix of Lil Jon’s “Turn Down for What” that has Kise bobbing his head regardless of how often he hears it played in other clubs. There is an incredible amount of blue and green lasers flashing around the otherwise pitch-black room, random pillars of support spread throughout the dance floor. There's an entire wall of glowing lights with decorative cutouts separating the sitting area from the main floor, with elegant, comfortable cushioned square seats surrounding several simple tables. Once they make it far enough into the place for them to circle and get drink orders together, Kise volunteers to retrieve them along with Takao. He doesn’t mind, is more than happy to get the night started before he goes straight for the dance floor and never leaves it.

He pushes his way through the mass of bodies, Takao right behind him, trying his best not to shove into anyone or get shoved himself, and slaps his money down on the counter of the bar the instant he gets there. He gives one of the bartenders an enigmatic smile, watching as the guy’s eyes flicker, surprised but uncomprehending. He has no idea whom Kise is but it‘s more than apparent that he wishes he did. He serves Kise quickly and makes small talk over the thundering bass of the music thumping around them, and Kise smiles and pulls away from the bar when he feels Takao’s elbow pointedly digging into his side.

He leads the way back to their group since he is taller and wider than Takao, pushing his way through and making it easier for them both to hold their drinks without spilling. It takes them a while to locate their friends, most especially since it seems they had become impatient and are already out dancing. Except for Wakamatsu, whom they found slouched over and scowling, holding a slip of paper in his hand like it was contaminated as a tiny brunette woman spoke directly into his ear. Kise bursts out laughing as they come upon them, disbelieving that Wakamatsu couldn’t even soften his scary face when speaking to someone who was obviously interested in him, for reasons Kise could not fathom at face value. She did look nervous, though, wringing her hands together with a flickering gaze she couldn’t keep on Wakamatsu’s face. Kise honestly wasn’t surprised given Wakamatsu’s intimidating expression and body language. The fact that she’d gathered enough confidence to approach that expression at all in the first place was both surprising and admirable. Kise likes her already.

When they are only a few steps away, Kise can just barely hear the tail end of the woman’s words.

“Uh, yeah. I’m sorry to bother you! If you want, feel free to call me. Um, sorry, take care!” And then she is smiling shyly at Kise and Takao as she passes, slinking back into the crowds around them. Kise hands Wakamatsu his drink, studying his narrowed eyes, scowling lips, and the unmistakable rosy tint to his cheeks. As Momoi and Midorima emerge from the sea of dancers as though their freshly delivered alcoholic beverages had summoned them and Wakamatsu slips what is undeniably the woman’s phone number into his pocket, Kise hides his knowing smirk in his own drink.

Momoi and Midorima are sweaty and ruffled but their eyes are bright and Midorima is loose enough now, apparently, that when he comes over to Takao he lifts a hand to gently massage the back of his neck, grinning slightly. Momoi is sipping daintily at her little straw, asking Kise why he is smirking like he knows a secret she, for once, does not. He just shakes his head and bends down to her ear, telling her that he’d spill it all later, and that she is going to love it.

Kise and Momoi are the first to finish their drinks and immediately trudge out onto the dance floor, Kise’s eyes bright and his breath coming quickly even before he begins to really move. There’s been no sign of Akashi and Furihata, but according to Momoi, that isn’t anything unusual. Momoi sticks with him and he is so thankful because damn does she know how to move. Takao joins them soon after, literally shimmying his way over to them and laughing all the while. A couple songs come and go and when a Daft Punk “Doin’ it Right” remix begins Midorima manages to drag Wakamatsu out with him into their section of the dance floor.

Midorima surprises Kise once again when he finally gets to see him dance. He is as smooth, as fluid and natural as Momoi is, and that is saying something. Kise bounces along with the beat; just laughing and watching the two of them dance together, hips and asses shaking perfectly to the music. Once he's finished laughing, positively jubilant with the knowledge that he now has two amazing dance buddies, Kise joins them like it’s nothing. He has a fairly decent ass, but he doesn't really think it was anything to write home about; regardless, he knows how to work his hips like nobody’s business.

Kise is having so much fun he can barely breathe, whether that’s from how avidly he’s dancing, like his life depends on it, or from laughing just because he’s so happy, he doesn’t really know. He remembers turning to look over his shoulder at one point, expecting to see Wakamatsu standing still as a statue with his arms crossed only to find him and Takao going all out, jumping and sliding and even smiling. Wakamatsu sings loud enough that Kise can actually hear him over the music, and Takao laughs so hard he’s almost crying because of it, his legs stumbling a bit as he tries to keep dancing seriously. Eventually, Midorima peels himself away from Momoi and comes up behind Takao and never leaves. The two of them are like a fated pair, inseparable, and Kise’s heart swells with the knowledge of it.

After Midorima’s separation, Momoi does her own thing, dancing with dudes and ladies, anyone that can keep up with her intensity as she jerks her body so hard and so fast it’s a wonder the girl even had a spine to hold her together. Kise knows those moves, though, and he knows he can do them better.

Sidling up beside her and waiting until she’s noticed that it’s him, he lets his delighted expression peel away to reveal one of blatant conceit, lips pouting out slightly, eyes a burning challenge. He watches a laugh burst from her mouth and the way her lips stay poised open in amazement as he mimics her movements and then perfects them. His body is no longer his; it belongs to the music. To the clashing cymbals, the unstoppable rhythm, the pounding of the bass that's in his ears, his skin, his bloodstream. He flings his head back and forth in time with the jerk of his hips, uncaring of how it makes him a little dizzy. He’s only a little tipsy, has only had a few drinks throughout the night, but it’s enough that when he straightens seductively from his crouch he can actively feel the blood returning to his head.

But he isn’t finished just yet. Momoi had separated from the two girls and one guy she’d been dancing with, flitting around him like some sort of ethereal creature, eyes wide and bright and impressed but also curious. Kise slows his movements down, eyes shifting from challenging to sultry in a second, mouth opening provocatively as he begins to turn his hips, an openly seductive exploration of his own body. He begins to rotate in a slow spiral, from the hand raised over his head, down the length of him, all the way through his knees until he’s crouching on the floor and coming back up, a measured seduction. Momoi’s hands come up to clap for him, laughing even as her expression becomes one of surrender, beaming at him. He smirks back even as her eyes flit pointedly over his shoulder and somehow manage to become even brighter.

Kise had not been paying attention to those around him, hadn’t even realized for a moment that anyone else was in the room except for Momoi, but at her meaningful glance he suddenly realizes that there are a lot of people cheering for the show he’s just offered, people that are both strangers and friends and that is definitely Imayoshi sidling up next to Momoi, his smirk a wicked slash across his face. Startled at his sudden presence, Kise turns immediately to look over his shoulder to where Momoi had glanced, with purpose, and finds Kagami and Kuroko along with some people he doesn’t know, and one who he definitely, definitely knows.

Aomine stands there looking like he’s either just seen someone get hit by a train or he is very close to orgasm—it’s a tossup. Kise feels himself flush, his already heated temperature rising at the look in Aomine’s eyes. He swallows. Kuroko and Kagami are heading over to him, a combination of walking and shimmying to the music, and there is this look on Kuroko’s face like he's proud of Kise that the blond honestly does not know how to interpret. Kagami’s expression is far simpler to understand: he’s smiling goofily, looking from Aomine to Kise with a knowing smile. Kuroko leads him further onto the dance floor by holding one of his massive hands and Kagami reaches out and slaps Kise’s shoulder, calling out a proud, “Atta boy!” before he and Kuroko disappear into the crowd.

Kise takes a moment to watch them go, his heart racing so powerfully in his chest he can feel the blood pulsing through his limbs. He’s still a little dizzy, a little tipsy, but the shock has more than worn off as he turns back to Aomine.

Aomine Daiki.

He doesn’t know what had been more surprising upon seeing him here, in a club, with the rest of them: the fact that he was even here, or the look on his face when he’d found Kise making love to the music. Either way, he is overjoyed that he’s finally here and he’s also just tipsy enough to let his eyelids drop slightly, to look through his lashes and gesture for Aomine to come over to him. He doesn’t, but Kise is so happy to have him here that he’s undeterred, lifting his hands and turning back to his friends to continue dancing, and maybe he moves his hips a little more to the beat than he has been before his little show, and maybe he lets someone his height run his hands along his defined biceps, just for the feel of them.

When he glances searchingly over his shoulder some time later, Aomine is dancing with the rest of them to a mix that blends The Beatles with Ke$ha and Kise honestly doesn’t know why he is surprised at what he finds considering that Aomine’s body is all lines of agile, defined muscle and he seems to be incredible at just about everything physical he does, but there it is.

Aomine’s body moves like a dream.

He’s on his own in the middle of the crowd, separate but not apart, not letting anyone grind against him just yet, the sharp edges of him curving along the lines of the air like it was a physical force manipulating his movements, like he’s on a ride no one else can manage to join. Kise can’t help but stare, doesn’t even care when Aomine notices, just watches the way Aomine’s body moves under the fluctuating lights, at once cast in beams of blue and green and red light and then cast in shadows, with only his piercing blue eyes visible through the masses between them.

When he finally breaks his stare, too buzzed and too high on the music to feel embarrassment, he finds himself surrounded by his friends once again. Kagami and Kuroko are grinding together but somehow make it look innocent and Kise is so not sober enough to even understand the disparity in that thought. Momoi comes back to him, handing him another drink to match her own, shimmying her shoulders and smirking and Kise thinks she looks like what dancing feels like, pure elation and liberation and—how could Riko ignore it? How could she see that this woman is in love with her, will do just about anything for her regardless of whether or not Riko returns her feelings, and not do anything about it?

At once he is frustrated and a little upset, not for the first time wanting to meet Riko and get a good look at her, to judge her character and see what kind of woman has captured Momoi’s gentle heart. Because she has to be special, someone incredible, to have managed to bring someone as strong, independent, and all-around extraordinary as Momoi to her knees.

She twists herself in front of him and playfully grinds against his front for a little over one song, as the current Daft Punk mix ends and the DJ’s voice mentions something overhead that Kise misses. The next song begins and there’s thunderous cheering all around him, laughter too, and he realizes that it’s “When I grow Up,” by The Pussycat Dolls. It’s almost funny how immediate his friends’ reactions to the song are, how they all instantly turn to him, pointing with raised brows and wide, smiling mouths. He only has a moment to feel bashful because their cheerfulness is catching and soon enough he’s hopping around with his hands above his head, singing along with the lyrics, feeling like he’s floating. He notices Wakamatsu in the corner of their circle, standing frozen with his eyes looking heavenward, one hand reaching up to cover his eyes as if to ask some higher power why he is being tortured like this. But when he looks back over at Kise and sees him making playful kissy lips at him he just releases this huge breath and starts dancing more vigorously than he has all night, like this song is his jam.

Kise and Momoi finish their drinks together all in one go, handing the empty glasses off to a passing Imayoshi who is going back for an unidentifiable number of drinks himself, and then they are spinning together, hands interlocked and singing loud enough to bother some of the people around them, but they are undeterred. When they slow and crash into each other, Kise straightens and rotates his shoulders to each side with a playful pout. He glances over her shoulder and feels like his heart might very well have skipped a beat at the look Aomine is sending him, smug and satisfied and so amused.

And honestly? Kise is far past tipsy and is bordering on drunk and disorderly and he just doesn’t give a fuck anymore. He dips carefully around Momoi and heads straight for Aomine, an open challenge in his eyes, different from the one he’d shown Momoi earlier that night. He expects Aomine to brush him off, to roll his eyes and head for a drink, pretty much anything but delivering a challenge right back, with sparks. He juts his chin out, blue eyes alive in the energy of the dance floor, body shifting from playful rotations to full out grinding the air around him, hips moving in ways that turn heads and incite hoots and cheers from people around him. Kise is transfixed, his heart louder in his ears than the music.

Aomine’s body moves like magic, like silk sheets and whispered promises and whiskey running spicy and smooth down his throat. For someone who’s so angular and defined, he sure could make his body surge with the shifts in the music like he is the song personified. And he knows it. He knows it and it makes Kise so fucking hot.

Their friends are slowly starting to circle around them, even Akashi and Furihata who seem to appear out of thin air; dancing with the clashing rhythm and beat of the music, but also actively present in this little duel that's taking place between their boss and the pretty little stray Momoi had picked up months prior.

It’s no secret how Kise feels for Aomine, everyone in the shop except for Aomine is aware of the torch he’s holding—even Wakamatsu knows! If that isn’t a glaring example of how unobservant and clueless Aomine is, then Kise doesn’t know what is. He wants to look at Momoi, to read her expression and how she is interpreting this little matchup, but he cannot tear his eyes from the lines of Aomine’s body, the way his hips are moving, the way he hooks his thumbs through the wide straps of his ridiculous black muscle tank and pulls the material to a stretch, baring the tops of his tattooed pecks, his smirk something made from midnight starlight.

It’s obvious that Aomine thinks he’s won, that he’s shut down the spark in Kise’s eyes and his will to compete with the curves of his own body, but Kise has never backed down from a challenge before, most especially one in a setting where he feels so alive, a living flame not even a storm could put out. And there’s also the fact that he has never wanted to answer a challenge more in his life, either.

He approaches Aomine and nods at him with deliberate slowness, giving credit where it’s due, too drunk and loose to realize how ridiculous this entire scenario really is. Aomine’s nose is still turned up haughtily and he’s smirking down at Kise as if he can’t imagine being on Aomine’s level, can’t imagine ever moving his body the way Aomine can, smooth and sinful and deliberate, like he knows he’s sexy. Like he knows he’s untouchable.

Kise stops right in front of him and let his chest curl outward and back in just once before he begins to mimic every single one of Aomine’s moves with perfect, unerring accuracy. His tongue slips from between his teeth and wets his upper lip as he lifts an arm to grip the back of his head, hair slipping through his fingertips as his body weaves a web of magic as enthralling as Aomine’s just had, his hips a perfect copy of a promise, his body becoming the song personified. He devours the shock in Aomine’s eyes, the way his chin comes back down and he levels an intense look at Kise, the way he bites down almost unconsciously on the corner of his bottom lip as he watches how Kise’s body moves against the hot air.

Momoi has come to dance in place beside Aomine, letting her head roll to the music even while she rarely takes her eyes off of Kise, her expression so smugly delighted he knows instantly that she knows what he’s doing and she is loving it. Their friends are dancing around them still, some paying attention while others are too wrapped up in their own dancing partner, and Kise feels powerful with the attention, with Momoi’s apparent amusement and glee at the shock Aomine is trying to deal with. Kise’s eyes are alive with the fire of the challenge, with the promise of a victory over Aomine, who seems completely baffled by the mere possibility that someone can beat him in this, in anything to do with his body. Aomine’s surprise tastes like a win on Kise’s tongue, goes down easy, and he wonders how much more delicious his lips will taste.

Once Kise has him good and totally trapped in the spell of his ability to copy and perfect any physical movement he’s studied, even those as intricate and intimate as the slow waves of Aomine’s powerful body, he drops almost abruptly into a crouch, shattering the tension on Aomine’s face. Momoi is the first to catch on, her laughter ringing as she begins to clap, Wakamatsu fist pumping excitedly, uncaring that he is blatantly supporting someone he constantly tries to tear down. He figures it’s better than supporting his boss.

Kise settles his hands on the insides of his thighs, just above his knees, and waits a few seconds for the perfect moment of the song before he begins to shift his hips forward and backward. He starts slow, soaking up the expression on Aomine’s face and the way Momoi is laughing so hard she's close to shedding tears before he begins to go all out, working his hips with such finesse that even Midorima comes around into his field of vision and makes an appraising face.

Kise is fueled on by the cheers as he continues to move his body in as rhythmic a fashion as he can, like his life depends on it, because as far as his drunken self is concerned, it does. His night depends on it. The expression of unadulterated desire on Aomine’s face, something he can’t hide or simply refuses to hide, only works to fan the flames. Kise lifts his hands from his thighs and runs them up his body as he straightens, his fingers sliding over his neck and carding up through his hair, stretching his body out long and lean, showcasing his flexibility.

When he feels his thighs begin to quiver he allows his body one last teasing curl before jutting his chin out at Aomine exactly the same way he had to Kise, and by the way he’s shaking his head and smirking, Kise knows that Aomine has been expecting it. Momoi saunters over to him before anyone can say a word as applause roars from the crowd around them, from those that can see and appreciate the strength and poise it takes to accomplish what he’d just flaunted.

Before Momoi can even get close to him, however, he feels a hand gently nudge his shoulder so that he’s turned around, and before he can even inhale to ask what’s going on, he feels hands on his hips, a chest pressing against his back. Aomine’s voice when he speaks directly in Kise’s ear, so close his lips almost touch his earlobe, is so dark and needy it very nearly kills him.

The hands on his hips tighten and he says, “Where the fuck did you learn how to dance like that, Golden Boy?”

He’s heard that nickname hundreds of times since he’d landed in Seattle, has gotten used to it and has grown to like it. But coming from Aomine, in his liquid, lazy drawl, it becomes so much more than an endearment, it’s more of a promise. Kise finds himself liking it even more with that kind of connotation behind it, but still feels a little bitter that it hadn’t been his name said in those low tones. He wonders if it’s a purposeful thing on Aomine’s side, if he is going to make Kise work for it.

Kise grinds his hips back a little more purposefully than he had been a moment before because it isn’t fair that Aomine has a voice that makes Kise think of midnight pleasures and Kise is stuck on the receiving end of it without the ability to reciprocate in kind. He has weapons of his own, though, and it seems as though even the unimpressionable Aomine Daiki is not unaffected by some ass to groin grinding action. He is human, after all.

Momoi had deviated from her path to Kise the moment she saw Aomine approaching him, hand already reaching out to grasp his shoulder. She doesn’t want for dance partners, though, and looks over the shoulder of the guy trying to woo her with his sick moves to see Kise’s head thrown back against Aomine’s shoulder, nose pressing into the side of his neck. Aomine is leaning over him, both a warning and a promise whispered in the lines of his body, and the people around them almost unconsciously give them room enough to dance without being jostled. It’s incredible the way they just fall into each other and yet all Momoi can think is yes and finally.

Unsurprisingly, Kise is of the same mind though with far more passion behind the sentiments. He is vaguely aware of the fact that he has moaned a few times into Aomine’s neck when his hips picked up their pace to match the increased tempo of the beat, grinding against Kise in a way that is more than cruel. Maybe it’s something in the air, maybe it’s the music, or maybe it’s the heat of their bodies sliding together and the way that they're pressed so tightly together that Kise can actually feel Aomine’s nipple piercings on his shoulder blades—regardless of what exactly it is, Kise knows that if they continue this a single minute longer he’s going to embarrass himself, and probably Aomine as well. Maybe their entire friend group, he isn’t even really sure, he just knows that he is experiencing a surprising lack of control he’s unused to in such settings—a blended mix of being too inebriated on both alcohol and Aomine’s attention—and that because of it, he needs to remove himself from the situation.

That isn’t to say that Aomine has to be removed from him as well, but that the both of them need to shift gears, like yesterday. Kise twists carefully in Aomine’s arms, pressing his lips to the taller man’s ear as he speaks. Aomine doesn’t even hesitate, doesn’t even question a damn thing, just reaches down and grasps Kise’s hand in his and begins to lead the way through the thriving mass of people around them, out to the fresh night air where he lifts his free hand to hail the first cab he sees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (hides my face)


	4. Chapter 4

Kise feels like the cab drive back to his hotel room is hands down the most tense and anticipation-filled atmosphere he has ever experienced in all twenty-five years of his life, but that could’ve also been influenced by the fact that he has been thinking about kissing Aomine for months, when he’s never really had to wait longer than a week for anything work-related that has caused him any kind of anxiety. He’d been lucky like that, even a little confident in himself; but this situation is a whole new playing field. This is the first time since meeting Aomine that he’s ever shown any sort of sexual interest in Kise and he’d be damned if he messed this up by letting their nerves settle and their minds clear. He hadn’t been very confident during the drive that Aomine hadn’t been sitting on the other side of car, cooling down and coming to the realization of what he’s doing and how he might want to put a stop to it.

But the moment they get out of the elevator and step onto Kise’s floor, all of his doubts are tossed to the wind as Aomine impatiently pushes him back against the hallway wall, hands pulling Kise’s hips to meet the gentle rut of his own. Kise throws his head back, sucking in a deep breath as his hands come up to card through Aomine’s short hair. His hands lock behind Aomine’s head and pull him in for a kiss, their first, and Kise’s heart feels like it’s about to beat straight through his ribcage it’s pounding so hard, so fast.

Aomine’s lips are as tantalizing and amazing as Kise had imagined, wet and skilled and greedy. He must have had similar thoughts about Kise’s lips because he can’t seem to get enough of them, either. He bites and sucks and when his tongue traces Kise’s bottom lip it is surprisingly hesitant, almost as though he was seeking permission. Kise would’ve rolled his eyes had they not been squeezed shut in bliss, but instead he merely lets his tongue come forward to touch Aomine’s and then there isn’t any more hesitancy, from either of them.

They’re still trying to make it to Kise’s room, he has his cardkey in his pocket though he can’t remember how it got there, considering Momoi had had it stashed in the deep pockets of her jeans, but they keep pushing each other up against the wall, as if they might actually die if they don’t have their lips pressed together once every minute, at least. When they finally make it to Kise’s door he can barely get the cardkey out of his pocket, let alone in the little slot above the door handle. It doesn’t help that Aomine is leaning over his shoulder, lips sucking a hickey high on the side of his neck, hands pressed to the flat of Kise’s abs, pulling him back into the hard strength of his chest.

He has to re-slide it in the slot three times before it actually takes, Aomine’s husky laughter reverberating in his ear. He flushes, a little embarrassed though he’ll never admit it. Aomine is laughing at him and he sounds far too clearheaded for someone who has been out all night and Kise is swaying where he stands but this is still a challenge, of sorts, or at least he’s taking it as one. So he spins in the doorway, a little carelessly, a little unsteadily, until he's facing Aomine with a sobered expression on his face. Aomine’s laughter chokes off when Kise pushes his dress suspenders off his shoulders, letting them fall to hang by his thighs, and lifts his shirt over his head, discarding it carelessly somewhere over by his front table.

Aomine’s heated expression becomes so severe, piercing and invasive and unwavering, that Kise actually shivers. He watches those blue eyes trace over his skin, his fair, unmarked skin, and he almost stops breathing. There isn’t a blemish on him, not even a scar to show that his skin has ever met a threat. He wonders what Aomine thinks about that, but he doesn’t have much time to contemplate, not that his fuzzy mind is really the best place for contemplating anything other than his body against Aomine’s at the moment, but still.

Aomine is back in front of him, pressed against him, in a flash. He has big palms and long fingers and they are all over Kise’s body, dragging teasingly over a nipple and back down to trail the defined lines of his abdomen.

Aomine presses forward so that Kise is left to stumble blindly backwards, still pressed chest-to-chest, his teeth pulling at Aomine’s bottom lip. He feels the arm of his couch press against the back of his knees before Aomine gives him a gentle push, the cushions soft and plush against his back. Immediately he maneuvers himself up onto his crooked elbows, wanting to get back to the warmth of Aomine’s body, but he’s already there, crawling on top of him, pressing him lightly down into the couch. Every touch he offers is so gentle, as if Kise might break under his hands, and it’s as frustrating as it is endearing. Kise grinds up against his stomach greedily, making sure that there are no misconceptions about what he wants, what he has been wanting since the moment he’d heard about Aomine from Momoi’s lips.

Aomine groans, rough and low and right into Kise’s mouth. He pulls back, breathing heavily, letting Kise lean up slightly to press kisses against his throat. Kise’s hands are all over his back, tracing his shoulder blades and shoulders reverently, playing with fine hairs at the top of his neck. Kise is so lost in his lust and pure elation at being able to finally touch Aomine that when he pulls back Kise feels the loss like a physical blow. He follows the retreat immediately, uncaring of how his insistency might translate as desperation, because he is desperate.

“Fuck,” Aomine rasps, nudging his nose against Kise’s almost tenderly. “Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Kise breathes, nodding even though he honestly isn’t sure what he’s agreeing to at the moment. The world is sort of spinning and he doesn’t remember being shirtless until he feels Aomine’s hot breath on one of his nipples, feels his teeth bite gently down on it to make him squirm, lavishing it with generous attention to quell the sting.

“So good,” Kise whines, shifting underneath Aomine’s heavier body, rolling his head back like a content kitten when he feels the delicious slide of their bodies together, the resultant curl of Aomine’s hips back into his, like an answer to a question he’s been asking for months.

“I’ve wanted this for so long, you have no idea. Oh my God, I’ve wanted this.” He knows that he’s rambling, knows that it’s a distinct trait he gets when he drinks far too much and loses a grip on his steely control, but he can’t seem to make himself care. He’s too dizzy and the room’s too blurry and Aomine’s body is too hot and Aomine—Aomine is just, too everything. Kise feels him freeze above him, lips hovering over Kise’s pulse point on his throat, his body shaking like he’s deliberately holding back. Kise is too far-gone to realize any of this, too fuzzy to realize that Aomine had stopped breathing altogether.

“I knew the first time I saw you that I wanted you, knew when I watched you sketch that I wanted those hands all over me. I can’t believe it’s actually happening.” Kise turns his head to nuzzle into Aomine’s neck, eyes closing in contentment even as his hands play with the hem of Aomine’s top. When Aomine backs his head away from Kise’s throat and looks down at his face, Kise leans up and kisses him, eyes closed even as Aomine’s remain open, searching. He pulls back, breathing heavily, panting out a single word of caution while one hand presses against Kise’s shoulder to keep him from following his retreat. Kise’s biting on his lower lip, trying to keep them connected, but Aomine lifts his head and hears the resounding plop as his lip is released. Kise’s golden eyes open as he leans back fully against the cushions, his eyes questioning but still so bright it twists Aomine up inside, so bright they seem to glow like true flames.

“Wait,” Aomine repeats, even though he has finally separated their lips, their chests. “I’m not doing this. I’m not doing you.”

“What?” Kise mutters, vision fuzzy around the edges. He thinks his arm comes up to try to pull Aomine back down, but then it’s by his head with Aomine’s hand loosely caging his wrist. He feels weak, like he should be able to go toe-to-toe with Aomine, especially in this. His thoughts are as shaky as his breaths are and his heart picks up speed when he feels rather than sees Aomine’s body moving off of his own.

“No,” he moans, reaching out in time to grasp the back of Aomine’s shirt, the material so thin he can’t believe it’s not see-through. Aomine turns, catches the hand and brings it gruffly to his lips, as if that chaste little press of his lips is enough to tide Kise over. Kise sits up from the couch, vision turning to stars as the blood rushes to his brain, and once again he feels Aomine pressing him down into the couch, whispering things to him he can’t quite manage to comprehend. He is suddenly so tired he feels his eyes getting heavy and he just wants to sleep but even more than that he wants Aomine, feels like he needs to have him.

Aomine is kneeling down on the carpet beside his head, brushing his hair back from his face, tucking it behind his ear. Kise thinks he hears him laugh, thinks Aomine might have flicked his hoop earring just once, playfully, before bending down to place his lips at Kise’s ear.

“Go to sleep, idiot.” He says, lips touching Kise’s ear lobe. It’s like he’s a magician or something, the words wrapping around Kise like a blanket of warmth, making his eyes feel even heavier. He feels his body relax even as he watches Aomine get back to his feet and disappear from his view. He comes back with the sheet from the bed in the other room, tosses it haphazardly over Kise, grumbling something under his breath. And then he's heading for the door, still grumbling, saying things Kise knows he would want to remember in the morning but he just…can’t…focus on them. His eyes slip shut and he passes out before the door has even fully shut behind Aomine.

 

✧

 

Kise visits the porcelain throne the morning after. He’s even re-created his toilet paper pillow and regretted his life choices, emptying his stomach and heaving at random intervals. He’s feeling marginally better by the time he gets to his lunch rendezvous with Kobori, ordering a sandwich that doesn’t even make his stomach curl in disgust, which is awesome. He eats, chats, and is appropriately merry to convince his manager that he had not been doing questionable things the previous night. Things that, had they been caught on camera, would’ve hit headlines that morning and landed him and his manager and his entire publicity team in a huge steaming pile. Alas, there are no headlines featuring him and his lips doing unsavory things, just something about the local political games.

Kise is very convincing, even though he keeps catching his manager giving him a questioning, suspicious glance. He smiles at him, tilting his head and asking him about hs (their) plans for the upcoming week. The moment Kobori stops staring at him in order to get down to business, Kise shamelessly tunes him out.

It's not that he doesn’t want to hear about his schedule, that is actually kind of impertinent to his survival in the industry, and it's not that he isn’t helpful with how hectic their lifestyles are, because he is. It’s just that he literally cannot stop thinking about the night before. He can’t stop feeling the press of Aomine’s hips to his, the way his lips had left a hickey so large Kise had opted for a scarf wide enough to bundle him up, even though it was only lightly brisk outside.

He can’t decide if he is more disappointed that all they’d done was make out, or more elated that they had made out. It’s a weird feeling, one he can’t really wrap his head around. He’d had both flings and relationships in the past, enough of each to be comfortable and familiar with his feelings towards them. He’d known before he even put his lips to Aomine’s skin that he wanted more than just a kiss, more than just one night. He hadn’t known how much he wanted, or for how long.

He still isn’t sure. All he knows is that they are going to have that one night, and that it is not going to be enough. All he wants to focus on right now, other than his work and his sleeping schedule, both of which are sort of integral to his survival, is how he is going to make this one night happen as soon as possible. He’s insatiable and he isn’t ashamed about it. Not in the slightest.

He won’t call Aomine an addiction, because there is no guilt and no replacing negative or apathetic feelings for the pleasure of his company. He isn’t a poison, has no negative connotations.

He is light.

He is so bright that just seeing him across The Zone, muscular shoulders branching out of his tank tops, covered in ink, makes Kise feel like he has to look away. Like his eyes can't even handle landing on the man, makes him blink to clear them, wonders how he can look at Aomine and feel so grounded but experience the wonder of flight all in one.

There is something special here, something that Kise has never experienced or known in his life with someone else. Something that makes him want to covet, to possess. He isn’t a jealous person, not usually. But knowing how it feels to stand beside Aomine, to be the person he is focusing on, to know what it feels like to have his tongue trace his bottom lip...it makes Kise protective of him. Makes him want those things for himself.

He’s in the process of understanding what exactly all of that means when some things Kobori begins to mention trigger his attention, bring him back to the present, thoughts of covetousness sent to the back of his mind for later study.

“What?” he starts, before backtracking sheepishly when he sees Kobori's eyes narrow. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”

“I said that those plans we’ve been hoping would fall into place have. You’re lucky you’re so cute, even for an old man.”

“Hey,” Kise whines, but he's too distracted by the good news Kobori had just delivered, too excited to care much about the dig at his age. His eyes are wide, his smile so wide it causes wrinkles to appear beside his eyes.

“Armani?” He says reverently, still in shock. “He wants me to do this?”

“Yes,” Kobori drones, as if it is both expected and obvious that he was going to get the gig. Kise gives him a pointed look as if to remind him of his incessant and verbal worrying about it for the past week. Kobori had the decency to scowl at him before interlacing his fingers on the table, completely professional.

“I spoke to one of his people just yesterday. He remembers you well from the show you walked for him, said that he’d been wanting to have a striking cover and matching spread that’s different than his usual style. The shoot is in Los Angeles and obviously he's not going to be there, but his clothing and some other hand-picked models will be. You just so happen to be one of them this time. His agent said you have the allure he maintains in his models, but an added…spark.”

“He likes my spark!” Kise quotes emphatically, going so far as to puff his chest up. It catches the attention of the people eating beside them, causing them to laugh and then to notice whom they are seated beside. Kobori grins contentedly when they approach for autographs, his expression as he watches Kise openly doting.

Kise accepts happily, getting out of his seat to offer some hugs and to play with their toddler’s pigtails briefly, cooing over how adorable she is. He settles back into his seat as they leave the restaurant, his eyes bright and shining as they always are whenever he interacts with fans. He turns back to Kobori and grins, the full force of him making him want to shield his eyes, though he allows for a scowl to suffice. Sometimes Kise Ryouta is a bit too much sunshine and rainbows for even him to handle.

“So, where and when?”

He settles into his seat and listens excitedly and with avid focus, knowing how helpful this one job is going to be for his career, not to mention how much fun it’s going to be. Kobori grins and begins to explain the details at about the speed of a jet fighter, and doesn’t stop until the sun is a beacon in the center of the sky.

 

✧

 

When Kise’s day officially ends the moon has replaced the sun in the center of the sky, the day burnt away to a blackened void, speckled with stars. He'd had a cocktail party to attend for the sole purpose of mingling, which he really had not minded attending. He was good at mingling, enjoyed it even.

A few hours afterwards, he wanders around inside his hotel room, slipping out of his outfit and into a pair of fresh boxer briefs and a tank top, both white. He falls back on his bed and lifts his phone above his head, texting various friends, keeping up with the lives he has had all over the world through small weekly messages. He keeps in contact with his friends in Tokyo the most often, and now Momoi as well. He rolls onto his belly and smiles down at the screen as he replies to a very longwinded story about a fussy customer that had mistaken Wakamatsu for a tattoo artist and had been near violent when the blond refused to tattoo her, even after he’d explained that he wasn’t actually one of the artists.

Kise has a flickering moment to wonder if an incensed Aomine had thrown out this random woman or if she’d been spared. Right as he’s about to text Momoi to ask, she explains that eventually the lady escorted herself out, huffing and turning her nose up at Wakamatsu, saying something about his hair looking ridiculous anyways. So of course he’d been on a rampage the rest of the day, filling the entire store with an insufferable air. Momoi tells him the only way she’d managed to get through the day without killing him was by hanging out with Midorima and plotting different ways to kill the blond creatively. That has Kise laughing out loud, shaking his head and feeling fondness curl up in his chest for all of them, even Wakamatsu.

They are a ragtag bunch for sure, but they are also some of the most genuine, down to earth people he’s ever met in his life. He feels welcome here, even without a single mark on his skin to make him belong. This thought reminds him that he has a prospective mark, so to speak, in the making. This manages to hinder his bright mood a little, his frown eventually turning into a pout as he flings himself over to his back, one leg crossing over the other as one hand traces lazily on the skin over his heart. He can’t avoid thinking about it for even a few days; it is an incessant buzzing in his head, a constant reminder that he is doing something wrong. He’s already gone through the stage of imagining all the possible ways that Aomine will react, but he hasn’t been able to land on one that leaves room for future correspondence. Every scenario he thinks up fucks with their friendship. Every single time he thinks about it he comes back to the image of Aomine’s eyes, usually so expressive and bright and so blue.

When Kise thinks about explaining himself to Aomine, all he can see are eyes that stare right through him. Eyes that lose all sense of life, of passion; drained of color and verve and interest.

The unsettling, blank stare of a stranger.

Kise closes his eyes.

 

✧

 

The next time Kise is in The Zone, he’s sitting in Momoi’s lap and he’s wearing a flower crown. He’d gotten shit for it the moment he stepped in the door, mostly from Wakamatsu which is more than predictable, but he’d merely posed in response, flashing his come-get-me eyes and laughing when Wakamatsu’s laughter broke off in his throat, making him choke. Midorima had glanced up from his magazine, raising his left hand—the one with the strange wrappings around his fingers—in the barest of welcomes. He’d also glanced at the flower crown and rolled his eyes, but that had only made Kise grin more.

He’d eventually explained to them why he was wearing it, told them how a particularly avid fan from Oregon had heard that he was in Washington and had picked flowers and sewn them together to make the accessory. There’d been a letter with the package explaining that he was a florist and a longtime fan of Kise, which explained the careful packaging that kept the crown of flowers preserved long enough to be worn for at least two days before they’d slowly begin to die.

Kise smells like a spring field in the middle of March and he loves it. The crown consists of a sweet blend of orange daisies, both bright and dark red carnations, and a scattering of white wild strawberries. It goes well with his long-sleeve dark pink button-up with two gift cartoon horse pins (he’d purchased those separately) in his chest pocket, half-tucked into a pair of ratty black skinny jeans. He feels like a spring nymph and does not care in the slightest how capricious that sounds for a twenty-five year old man to think.

Kise doesn’t wear every gift he's sent by his fans though he tries to wear most of them at least once. He gets so many in the mail he’d never be able to wear them all before he died, so instead he makes sure to find the ones with heartfelt meaning, and as many of the ones that young fans send as he can manage, and wear them publicly at least once.

The explanation of both the gifts situation and the flower crown served to settle some of the jibes down but only caused Wakamatsu to gag and become even more hostile, as was his charm.

The Zone is experiencing one of its slowest days, a Wednesday with only a few appointments—a rare day that is treasured as such. Kise had walked in on the shop transformed into a classroom of sorts, perching on Momoi’s lap as he listened to Imayoshi quiz Wakamatsu’s knowledge of various objects around the shop and Wakamatsu’s monotone answers. Momoi and Akashi are in on it too; Momoi calling around Kise and asking what certain words mean and when to use which kind of ink while Akashi postulates various piercing circumstances and asks in that same controlled voice how Wakamatsu would respond to each.

Kise hasn’t seen hide nor hair of Aomine and assumes that he has the day off, content if a little disappointed to just sit in on the teaching session. He is impressed with Wakamatsu’s knowledge and the way he answers every question so professionally, though. Wakamatsu’s clinical and precise and it makes Kise feel proud of the guy, even though he himself knows almost nothing about the questions or their answers.

Momoi allows him to sit in her lap until she starts to lose feeling in her legs, which, in his opinion, is a testament of how real their friendship is. He moves off and perches on the edge of one of her tables, hands tucked into his pockets. He’s beaming, enjoying the quiet, content air of the shop—so different from its usual down-to-business edgy professionalism. Someone has even put Zeppelin on the overhead, playing soft and smooth.

Kise feels like he belongs in here and he knows that his presence is so constant that it’s expected now. It’s gotten to the point where if he shows up without pastries from next door, it changes the very air that the shop runs in. If he’s missing for over a week people begin to get edgier than usual, though he thinks personally that that’s because they have to resort back to teasing Wakamatsu, which is just too easy—teasing Kise is a challenge they all seem to enjoy. He enjoys it too, because he’s better at it than they are. Momoi can give him a run for his money and though Aomine has never actually joined in more than throwing in a quick biting word or four, he usually is too guttural to be understood anyways. He has no chance against Kise’s smooth lilt and quick wit and Kise likes to think Aomine knows it.

Not that Aomine wouldn’t be able to shut him up in a hot second if he looked at him just the right way, but he really doesn’t need to know that.

Kise laughs as Imayoshi fires a rather detailed question at Wakamatsu, still sketching even while he lists several different real-life situations for him to choose from. Wakamatsu is leaning against the back wall, arms crossed over his chest, smirking arrogantly. He’s an intern, of sorts, though his job mostly consists of being shop manager under Midorima, which made his constant thunderstorm disposition a little more understandable. Kise sympathizes. But it had become clear pretty early on that Wakamatsu’s dream is to become a tattoo artist; that he’s been practicing on leather and even skins he begged off of a local meat market worker just to better his technique. Kise knows that he owns an old tattoo machine and that he can’t afford a new one just yet, which is why he works just about every single day of the week.

Kise also knows what this teaching session must mean to him, considering Imayoshi is the main delegator of questions and Wakamatsu has this glaringly obvious style-crush on him. He’s constantly breezing by Imayoshi’s station to see his work, to ask questions when the time is right and he won’t be a nuisance, strategic and genuine. He wants desperately for Imayoshi to be his mentor, for several reasons, though the main one is apparently because Imayoshi mentioned something about Wakamatsu’s style being similar to Imayoshi’s early works. From there Wakamatsu had gotten especially interested in learning about how Imayoshi had branched out and grown into his own—and was hungry for ideas on how to do the same. He’d made sure to explain to Imayoshi that he understands the significance of having one’s own style and sticking with it no matter what, but even still, he wants to be guided by someone whose dealt with the same struggles.

Zeppelin’s “You Shook Me” comes on overhead as Imayoshi changes the direction of his questions, asking specifically about the safety and cleanliness necessary in a tattoo shop. Wakamatsu doesn’t mess up a single answer, grumbling when fellow coworkers applaud with open surprise of his knowledge when he continues to answer correctly.

And that is when Aomine comes through the door, greeting Midorima with a friendly grunt and striding through the shop with confidence in every step. He’s never one for detailed greetings, though he does make sure to either grunt or nod at every one of his workers as he makes his way back to his station. People call out their greetings to him respectfully and continue paying attention to the game, listening to Imayoshi’s cunning voice and Wakamatsu’s clean-cut responses. When he comes upon Momoi he throws her a glance that’s warmer than any other he’s offered, making Kise smile because it’s so obvious how much the two of them care about one another, and then he comes to a stop right in front of Kise.

Kise smiles at him, greets him jovially. Aomine ignores the greeting, eyes trailing over him in a way that isn’t suggestive or seductive, but almost as if he’s making sure that Kise is still in good form. Regardless of his intention, Kise is seduced either way.

He’s wearing a gray tank top so dark it might as well be black, with Batman’s face on the front. His legs, as always, are encased in black jeans and Kise feels his smile growing wider when he realizes that he’s wearing his disgusting loafers. His tattoos are as bright and beautiful as ever, ethereal in the bright lighting of the shop, contoured to the defined shape of him.

Kise waits for him to pass, to head over to his little nook, but is startled when instead of moving on, Aomine’s hand comes up towards his head. His index finger lifts the underside of one of the petals on Kise’s flower crown, his face poised in wonder. He glances down and searches both of Kise’s honey-gold eyes as his hand comes back down to his side, his lips finally turning up at one corner in his trademark smug smirk.

“Kise,” he greets, eyes bright and playful in a very deliberate sort of way. Kise stops breathing as he finally moves on, his stride unbroken as he makes his way back to his corner.

Wakamatsu is still batting a thousand and it’s clear that while Imayoshi is impressed, he’s also reluctant about it. He says something about how well Wakamatsu’s doing, which makes the blond puff up like a proud bird before Imayoshi, in his typical cruel way, concludes the compliment with a retort about Wakamatsu still having a stupid face. This is enough to set Wakamatsu off like an exploding volcano, though he does his best to hide the fact, a twisted smile falling over his face. Some coworkers are standing up for Wakamatsu now, clearly impressed enough with how hard he’s been studying and focusing on the job that they’re willing to put their stuff in with his, to be on his side, even if it means going against someone as scary as Imayoshi.

“What does my face even have to do with anything?” Wakamatsu snarls, cracking his knuckles distractedly. “Good looks don’t even matter, especially in a tattoo shop where it’s the art that matters. Good looks are for dumbasses.”

Did he just glance at Kise? Ouch. Before Kise can even raise a hand over his heart and pretend to be wounded, the surprise of a husky voice cutting in from Aomine’s corner has everyone’s heads turning. No one can see him, since he’s crouched on the floor looking in the lowest drawer of one of his cabinets, but his voice when he raises it is clear and distinct.

He says, “Listen, we don’t give a shit what anyone looks like in here unless it’s about the ink on their skin or the holes we put through it.”

“Exactly,” Wakamatsu agrees, sneering at Imayoshi. But then Aomine is standing, miscellaneous supplies in his hands that he places meticulously around his station. He’s obviously preparing for a client, one of few for the day, and Kise feels excitement curl up into his chest at the realization that he’ll have time to watch him work.

Aomine adds, almost nonchalantly, “I’d prefer a pretty face, though.”

Imayoshi smirks at Wakamatsu, who turns to Aomine with one eye twitching. He’d been so close to having even the boss’s support, only to have it ripped out from under him because of Aomine’s proclivity for a beautiful aesthetic. Wakamatsu looks ready to break out a power point on the subject when Aomine crosses his arms over his chest and leans a hip against his table, apparently as ready for his client as he is to actively join in on the discussion.

“But listen, that shit is not important in here. Not in The Zone. Not in my place. You’re a novice, kid, and we all understand the circumstances. It’s clear you know your shit, but you also need to know the difference between hypothetical questions and the real deal. It’s all fun and games with us right now, but this is serious shit. You don’t want to hurt anyone. Tattoos, piercings, these are both a big fucking deal. Even when some people don’t treat them that way. It’s important that you know your stuff, that you know it back and forth, can recite it backwards in your sleep, but it’s also important to know it when there’s a person trusting you with their body right in front of you. We have specific disinfectant, materials, and procedures all for the purpose of making this a safe experience, as well as a bitchin’ one.”

Everyone is nodding, falling into place behind their boss; a rare moment of sincerity and open admiration for the way Aomine runs his shop. Wakamatsu has this expression like he wishes he had a pen and paper and could be taking notes and even Imayoshi looks contemplative without the edge of malice that usually accompanies that look. Kise’s smiling down at his shoes, smug with the level of adoration currently directed at their resident grump boss. It takes a few moments before Aomine seems to realize that he sounds really badass and so of course he decides right then that apparently he has to ruin it.

“Plus, I fucking hate clutter in my shop. If you’re gonna be like fucking Pigpen, I don’t have use for you. Clean your shit up and we won’t have a problem.”

“Do you mean that literally, boss?” the way that Imayoshi says it makes it glaringly apparent he’s referring to the inside joke the shop has about Wakamatsu pooping his frustration and rage out whenever he erupts. His eyes flicker through several threatening gleams before he lands on one that has an accompanying smirk, one that makes Kise straighten slightly and Imayoshi’s grin falter. Wakamatsu doesn’t say a word, just starts whistling as he thanks Aomine for the advice, his tone sincere if a little saccharine. Aomine just nods, not meddling in with their childish affairs, mostly because he’s too lazy to care.

Kise is almost entirely certain that Imayoshi is going to find himself up shit creek without a paddle within the week. He glances over at Wakamatsu once more and frowns.

Definitely something nasty.

 

✧

 

Kise has officially begun his countdown to leaving Seattle.

He’s been aware of the time passing much quicker than he expected or is prepared for, but when he has a few months left he begins to mark it on his phone calendar. It’s a glaring reminder that his life is always shifting, changing. He cannot stay in one place for long, not when he's needed in shows and shoots and interviews and God knows what else all around the world, at any given time. He could arrive somewhere so early the birds aren’t even awake yet, take care of his business, and be on the next flight out to somewhere across the world where the colors of the horizon are being sucked away into a murky midnight steel the same day.

He has always loved his lifestyle, regardless of how exhausting it is or how demanding of his body or how taxing of his mind it promised to be. He feels like he was built for it. But he’s also never found a place that felt so comfortable to him, never found a group of friends that he’s able to build intimate relationships with—enough to realize that not seeing them throughout the week would actually negatively affect him, even on a physical level. He has that here.

His Armani photoshoot is in a few days and he’s been preparing his things meticulously for the past hour. He knows that he's prepared, that he hasn’t forgotten anything, but any number of days away from his friends here in Seattle feels wrong. He only has so much time left with them, left with Momoi and with Aomine, and he wants to spend every possible moment he can with them.

Instead, he’s going to be gone for at least two days. Factoring in the location, the outfits, the hair and the makeup planned, he’s just hoping that everything goes according to plan. That way, he might even be able to return a day earlier than expected. He isn’t entirely comfortable with the realization that he prefers to run from something he usually loves above all else to get back to something he’s grown to love even more, but he’s settling down with the idea.

He’s actually playing with the idea of how to intermix the two, has begun to entertain the idea of Momoi or Aomine or, hell, even Midorima coming with him to one of his photoshoots or fashion shows. He’d even take Wakamatsu if he knew the man would accept and not just laugh in his face before insulting him. Kise is essentially trying to ride two horses with one ass, but he isn’t going to blindly accept that there’s no way to blend the two.

This is entirely the reason that he stops by The Bakery and orders a super secret strawberry shake from the super secret menu, slaps down the cost price and a little extra before promising Kagami that he’ll be right back. He strides from the bakery and into The Zone, passing everyone with curt nods and a fixed, take-no-prisoners expression on his face. When he finally gets to Aomine, he’s cleaning one of his tables with a dainty cloth and a pair of gloves on. He glances up at Kise, the lift of his brows the only sign that he’s reacting to Kise’s presence at all.

“Come with me,” Kise says. He doesn’t wait, doesn’t even hesitate as he leans down and grasps Aomine’s bicep. Part of him is expecting to be thrown out of the store for disorderly conduct, another part of him is expecting Aomine to throw a punch given his delinquent past, and the rest of Kise is just too determined to get through with this plan to care much about bodily harm at the moment.

Aomine has always surprised him, though. So when he gets up without any sign of violent inclinations and follows after Kise with some grumbles and groans and something about the one day he actually gets to clean his worktable and this is how his energy is rewarded, Kise doesn’t falter. He drags Aomine out of the shop and into the bakery so urgently that Aomine still has his black latex gloves on. They head to the counter alongside the line already formed, waiting as Kuroko takes orders and Kagami continues to bake in the back. He pops his head out at the sound of their entrance and gives Kise a friendly nod, turning to scowl insolently at Aomine. Kise grabs the shake and gives Kagami an over-the-shoulder thank you before dragging Aomine over to a free booth.

Aomine’s scowl could’ve been carved into his mandible for how deep it was; his eyes twin pits of confusion and irritation. Kise pushes the shake towards him and sits back, finally letting the harsh structure of his determined expression fall away to reveal a content smile. Aomine doesn’t question the shake, doesn’t ask what flavor and—when he takes a loud slurp—doesn’t question how Kise knows his favorite flavor is strawberry. He finally removes his gloves and stuffs them into one of his pockets, attention fully focused on his shake. After a few long moments of slurping and staring and general nothingness that eventually irritates Aomine all the way from his tattooed toes to his pierced ears, he finally breaks the silence.

“What,” Aomine begins casually, “the fuck is going on?”

Kise pouts. “I told you!”

“You dragged me.” Aomine responds, brow hitched. Kise takes a deep breath, interlacing his fingers atop the surface of the table as if he was approaching a potential business client, every line of him professional.

“Come with me,” he repeats before adding, “to LA.”

Aomine’s face screws up in apparent confusion, looking Kise over like he has a contagious illness Aomine wants no part in contracting. Kise shakes his head, realizing how permanent that sounds and feeling his throat tighten with the realization that he may have just unintentionally hinted at his dreaded future conversation with Aomine, though he had not been anywhere near meaning to.

“For a few days!” he corrects fervently, gesturing wildly. “Just a few days. I have a big photoshoot down there and I was wondering if you’d like to go with me.”

Kise watches Aomine’s expression remain unchanged, though his eyes flicker through several different expressions alone and then recede to a cautious gleam that makes Kise think he’s hiding something. He sits back, glancing at his shake as if it was a bribe, which, okay, it sort of was. The longer he looks at Aomine’s face the more awkward he feels and the more his mouth continues to babble to make up for the potential of being utterly, outright rejected.

“It’s kind of a big deal, but I mean if you don’t want to come or you don’t have time, oh my God I didn’t even factor in your schedule and how busy you’ve been! It’s probably too short notice, you’re right; I didn’t really think this out as well as I’d originally thought. I just would’ve liked for you to come, and spend some time. With me. See my side of things for a bit, I don’t really know.” He smiles, self-deprecating. He runs a hand through the back of his hair, shaking his head and meeting Aomine’s unfathomable expression with eyes squinting shut.

Aomine’s unwavering stare makes Kise nervous enough to shake his head, gesturing with finality and saying, “You know what, forget about it. I was being kind of selfish, I didn’t even think—”

“What are the dates?” Aomine interrupts, and his voice sounds serious. Kise straightens, still shaking his head as if to deflect the question and apologize again. He answers hesitantly, looking Aomine right in the eyes so as to gauge whether or not he’s just humoring him. Kise doesn’t want to force him into going, that wasn’t his intention at all. He just thought that Aomine might want a tiny break from his busy schedule to get a look at what Kise does for a living, what he loves to do. Thinking over it now, that was kind of a stupid thought to make in the first place. Aomine loves tattooing.

“It’d be this Thursday through Saturday, nothing more. If everything goes well, we could probably get out of there by Friday evening.” Kise feels nerves bundling in his gut, his hands beginning to wring together in his lap. He wonders if he should’ve just gathered his confidence earlier and given Aomine more time to think about it, to look and see if he even has the time. Four days prior to the trip wasn’t much of a warning at all, but Kise has been occupied with trying to figure out how to phrase this little trip request without it sounding like anything romantic and worrying over every option he came up with. Which is why he sort of just burst into The Zone and dragged Aomine over for a very nondescript, straightforward attack. Smooth.

“Hey, don’t feel pressured or anything! I know it’s short notice and honestly probably not your ideal vacation or anything. I just, uh, thought that since I’m constantly watching you work it’d be cool if you got to see my work.”

That had sounded far less creepy in his head, but there it is, out in the open and sitting in the air between them, irretrievable. Aomine doesn’t seem to care, though. He’s mulling over something, probably his schedule for the upcoming week, his scowl dipping to dangerous proportions. Kise isn’t going to jump to conclusions and listen to the negative Nancy in his mind telling him that that is a bad sign. Not when Aomine is actually taking the time to mull things over, and Kise had sort of been expecting to be shot down immediately. Maybe with a derisive laugh on the backburner.

“Okay,” Aomine finally says, leaning forward and wrapping his big hands around his shake—a definitive good sign. He takes a long slurp of the drink, his eyes gleaming prettily as Kise studies his face apprehensively.

“I think I can manage a few days away from the shop. This shit better not be boring, though. I swear Kise, if I get stuck in the corner with a bunch of morons I’m going to wring your neck.” Kise’s face lights up like a sunrise and he shimmies in his seat, reaching forward unthinkingly to place one of his hands on Aomine's even as they remain around his shake. He moves back after a companionable moment of squealing and watches as Aomine shrugs.

“Plus, I’ve been wanting to take a trip down to that area for a while, scope out the ink scene. I have some clients down there that come up and hang sometimes, mostly piercers. I’d like to drop by their places.” He doesn’t phrase it as the question it is, but Kise nods emphatically nonetheless. He’s so happy he’s stuttering, which is embarrassing and hasn’t happened to him since he was a kid, but he’s too excited to care.

“Of course! Anything you want,” he says, and Aomine’s eyes light up dangerously.

“Anything?” he returns immediately, raising one curious brow. Kise’s excitement takes an extreme turn from innocent to lustful in the blink of an eye. He nods jerkily, insides in turmoil at the simple movement of an eyebrow, the husky drag of Aomine’s voice.

“Like, say…getting another piercing?”

Kise’s eyebrows shoot up and he feels more than hears the choked laugh escape his throat. He isn’t entirely certain whether or not Aomine is joking, but that eyebrow looks serious enough to make Kise squirm.

“U-uh, what kind of piercing?” he asks, stalling. Kise didn’t think it was possible but Aomine becomes even more smug than usual at the apprehensive question.

“I guess we’ll find out,” he says cryptically, almost beaming as he takes an extra loud slurp of his shake, a scraped edge to this one that meant he’d finally finished it. He stands from the booth, wiping his lips with his forearm and disposing of the shake with a graceful flick of his wrist that baffled Kise. He gestures for Kise to follow him back over to the counter where he converses with Kuroko for a few minutes, his tone gentle. But then Kagami is sticking his head out into the doorway from the back room again and this time he brandishes his ladle at Aomine threateningly.

He pitches his voice low, the chords of it scraping over the air. “Don’t give him any of my pastries, Kuroko! This bastard has to earn back that right.”

“Of course, Kagami-kun.” Kuroko replies, monotone. Aomine scowls even more at the redhead, glaring at him.

He retorts, “As if I’d want your nasty ass pastries anyway. Last one I ate tasted like ass.”

“You taste like ass!” Kagami replies in a high-pitched voice, almost a screech. Kise is muffling laughter behind his hand and watching Kuroko’s blank stare flicker back and forth between his boyfriend and Aomine before he says, in a tone far too serious for the subject matter, “You both seem familiar with the taste of ass.”

There’s a high pitched croak from the back room where Kagami has returned, undoubtedly checking on his last batch of cookies or cupcakes or whatever he’s cooking that smells so fucking delightful. Kise blurts out a laugh, unable to hide it even behind his hand.

“Fuck this,” Aomine growls, throwing his hands up and imparting one last low blow at Kagami. Kise watches as just his middle finger pokes into the doorway in response, even as he shouts out, “Take care, Kise!” Kuroko waves with that small, enigmatic smile on his face before heading into the back room, most likely to latch onto Kagami in a vice-tight hug. At the very least it would settle Kagami down enough to not burn the cookies.

Kise follows Aomine as he heads back into The Zone, wishing he could latch on to him and make him feel better just by the warmth of their skin touching, but alas. He can only stride behind him, watching the way his muscles move under his black clothing, the way his feet are encased in a pair of dirty white socks inside his loafers. Huh, Kise thinks. Usually Aomine wears the loafers on their own without any socks, which, don’t even get Kise started. Aomine glances over his shoulder and happens upon Kise’s confused glance at his feet and frowns.

“I’ve been cold lately,” he explains, shrugging his heavy shoulders. Kise wonders how he’d even interpreted his glance correctly enough to offer an answer, but decides he’ll examine that thought another day. For now, he just hums in response, following him back to his station and hanging around like the wallflower of the shop that he is. Lately, Aomine has been letting him hang out in his section without kicking him out or grumbling about his presence, which only encourages Kise more. Even when Momoi is in, he’ll visit her section for a little while before heading back to Aomine’s. It’s pretty obvious that she, Midorima, and Imayoshi know what’s going on, can see his crush from a mile away, but they don’t say anything. And besides, even if they did, Kise isn’t sure Aomine would even believe it. He is kind of…an idiot.

Kise doesn’t mind; he likes this particular idiot. 

Loafers and all.

 

✧

 

Momoi had literally gasped and dropped her clutch when he’d told her that Aomine had accepted his offer to travel with him down to Los Angeles. That alone was enough to reinforce how out of the ordinary and special this trip is looking to be. Momoi had quickly jumped to explain that Aomine had not taken a vacation in years, that in fact she couldn’t even remember the last time he’d taken more than a day off from work, and even then, it had been to talk business with people over lunch or dinner, which really wasn’t a vacation at all.

So Kise isn’t taking it for granted. He’s treasuring every moment, including the flight over when he’ll be squished against the window with Aomine’s shoulders pressing against his, his low voice grumbling in irritation at how small the seats are. Even still, they’re first class and the best Kise can offer. Aomine had thrown a fit when Kise had given him his ticket and he’d seen they were in first class and that Kise had paid for all of it. He’d given Kise the money earlier in the week when he’d been swamped, telling him to order an ordinary ticket and give it to him when they met at the airport. Kise had taken the money and used it and a little of his own to upgrade the seats.

Aomine grumbles about it all the way through security and onto the plane until he sees how enclosed the ordinary seats are and how his long legs would’ve been absolutely squished into them. Kise had smirked, told him there was a lot more leg room in first class and that was reason enough for tall people like themselves to pay a little extra. Not to mention that Kise is loaded and has money to spare and that he had been delighted to pay Aomine’s way. The taller of the two was too proud, though, and grumbled about it the entire way to LAX.

They’d gotten to their room and rested for about an hour before they’d needed to head out for the first day of shooting. The entire ride there, Kise explains the layout of a photoshoot, the way everything is going to fall into place, the way people will be scattered around everywhere, each with their own deliberate purpose. He’s an old hand at this and he’s also entirely too social for his own good, which means that he knows every single detail of every single person’s job on top of his own role. He has a habit of talking to as many people as he can, wanting them to feel comfortable and to relax even when their jobs demand so much of them. He knows that a lot of the behind-the-scenes people often get overlooked, especially by the models and the designers, so he makes sure to try to get everyone’s names and to be social with them. He likes a comfortable set anyways, and when people are high-strung and tense it makes his job more difficult as well.

He makes sure when they get there that Aomine won’t be bored or pushed off to the side. He introduces him to some familiar faces he knows and some he doesn’t, bringing him along and explaining the processes of different jobs within the massive room. The first shoot is going to be indoors in amazingly bright lighting that Kise is used to, though Aomine is not. He’s squinting, scowl locked in place even when he’s introduced to new people, scaring several of them off before he can even ask what their jobs are. That makes Kise laugh, even when Aomine turns his scowl on him in response.

He brings Aomine with him all the way to hair and makeup, too, which is an absolute delight. Kise had thought he’d stand in the corner, hands shoved into his jean pockets, scowling at everything in sight. Instead, he hovers over Kise’s makeup artist for the day, a petite woman named Mel, and asks questions. It is both the most hilarious and endearing thing Kise has ever seen, so much so that he keeps laughing out loud and shaking so much she playfully smacks his arm and tells him he’s going to mess up her work. He stills after that, still grinning, listening as the lapse in conversation is once again filled by Aomine’s gruff questions. He doesn’t even censor himself, which surprises Mel enough to make her flush and snort out a laugh, glancing curiously at Kise. He doesn’t even react—he’s having too much fun being a bystander to people meeting Aomine for the first time.

“What the fuck is that? It looks terrible,” he says when she squeezes a tiny bit of liquid foundation onto her finger, bringing a triangular sponge over to dab at it.

“That looks too dark for his skin tone. And why are you using fuchsia when he’s gonna be in navy? Wait, that actually looks pretty boss. Where do you guys get this shit? Is there an online store? Is there one in Washington? I like the colors here, in this palette. Do you ever blend them together? When you blend like this, it usually pops a little bit more. Oh damn, that technique worked like a dream, didn’t it? Can you show me that one more time? Holy shit.”

Kise cannot physically hold back his laughter at times, especially when Mel kind of leans back and gives Aomine a once over, taking in his black graphic tee with President Obama’s face on it, his ratty black jeans and his fuck-off vans, a shade of light gray with several little hands flipping the bird all over the material. Kise hadn’t said a word about his loafers, which he’d worn in the airport and on the flight, but apparently Aomine had decided to dress up for the occasion. He even has some sort of cologne on, something that’s a blend of the ocean and a fresh breeze and just totally fucking addicting.

Kise is separated from Aomine when he goes to retrieve his first outfit, mingling with the other models now that he has the time to spare. He glances surreptitiously over to Aomine, making sure that he isn’t on his own, bored and in the corner. Every time he looks, though, there is someone new talking to Aomine, and he seems less and less irritated and more interested, almost curious as he glances around the place. Mel has escaped to her next model, sending Kise a look like she owes him something, which makes him laugh out loud.

He gets into his first outfit, a smooth navy suit with a white button up and a fuchsia handkerchief in his chest pocket. He smoothes the material down before heading over to the set, greeting the photographer and shaking his hand with a warm expression. He and one other model move into place, waiting until everyone is in their correct spots and prepared to begin. Kise catches sight of Aomine standing a little ways back, arms crossed and chin tilted up, looking curiously at the stage.

Slipping into his professional persona is as easy as slipping into his suit had been. His smile fades to a slight pout, his eyes remaining bright but less like sunshine and more like the glow of embers in a midnight campfire, smoky and mysterious. Aomine watches, spellbound, as Kise shifts from a sort of boyish buoyancy, jubilant and bouncy, to a man clearly used to seduction in the blink of an eye.

Kise loves the cameras and they love him back—something that never fails to show in his footage. He maneuvers himself around the other model, allows him to shift their bodies slightly and makes sure that he moves his face in all the right ways so that the lighting hits his angles just right. He flaunts the suit in an elegant way that is both showy and reserved, something that’s difficult for most models to perfect. When it comes to modeling clothing or jewelry, the show was all about the fashion, with the model’s role being only a minimal factor. In this case, Kise wants to flaunt the outfit without seeming arrogant, giving his expression and his body language just enough of a twist to display confidence. His angular face and his bright eyes are made to look severe and mysterious, secretive and powerful. The black-haired model at his side looks more severe than Kise ever could, but his eyes are candlelight to Kise’s wildfire and everyone in the room knows it.

It isn’t a competition to him anymore, not really. He had been just a boy when he’d been scouted and picked up for modeling, not even old enough to drive yet. He’d worked through his years of competing and showing off his talents and his abilities, his natural good looks and charm points. He’d done his time, made a name for himself, a good one. He no longer feels the need to steal away the spotlight when the cameras are on him, doesn’t think he has to. Not with his level of popularity or his renowned status. He is more than willing to let the younger model beside him step forward and shine, but he wants him to grow as a model, too.

So maybe he liked to challenge the younger guys, liked to make them work for their popularity, especially standing next to someone as experienced as he was. Kise couldn’t say no to a challenge, not even in this.

He wished there would’ve been someone to do the same for him. It’s only right that he bestow upon them the graciousness he had never experienced, because there is a blatant need for more openness in this industry. More compassion. But there is still a respect for the designers and clients that must be upheld, one where it’s not sufficient to not do your best at all times. Kise makes sure that he never disrespects any of his clients, either intentionally or otherwise.

So he tries to find a balance between working his magic and encouraging his younger counterparts to shine brighter then they’d thought possible. It’s a little different now, though, with the man he is sort of probably in love with standing in the back, gaze like a beacon aimed directly at Kise. He finds himself stealing more of the show, pulling out all the stops just to try to impress Aomine in any way he can. The lights are too bright in his eyes for him to see much more than a glance of him, but that doesn’t stop him from making love to the cameras in his stead.

He has to change into one other outfit and have his hair redone before they are able to go home. The outfit that they have planned for the next day, the outdoor shoot, is something Mel has already told him he’s going to enjoy. He hasn’t been able to see it yet, but he’s worked with her before and he trusts her judgment in knowing what kind of styles he has the most fun wearing.

The suit he changes into is a sleek black one with a thin white strip of fabric lining his lapels and pockets, with a light gray button up and a steel gray tie. He feels very streamline in it, very sleek and lithe and sexy. His hair is styled with a side part, slicked back and showcasing the sharp angles of his face, the brightness of his amber eyes. He can’t help but think that Aomine would wear this suit so much better than he is, given his knack for all-black outfits and the mysterious, almost cruel cut to his mouth. He wonders what Aomine thinks of him in these expensive suits, classy and elegant and so unlike the kitten sweaters he enjoys wearing.

He approaches the same stage, though several people have already been through it to change the props and the lighting. This time he’s working the stage alone, the other model still slipping into his second outfit and preparing to wait his turn for a solo shoot as well. With no one but himself in front of the cameras, Kise lets himself glow.

It’s apparent from the second shot on that whatever he’s doing is exactly what the photographer wants, given his loud and fervent encouragement for Kise’s poses and expressions. He’d been instructed beforehand that this is a serious shoot, no fun and games. But Kise is a model that has fun and games inscribed on the core of him, so he lets his lips curve in a slight smirk a few times, lets the reminder of Aomine and his ridiculous interrogation of his makeup artist rekindle as gleams in his eyes that catch the camera just right. He soaks in the lights and plays down his shadows, putting the suit on display like he’s been taught to. He poses in ways that show how sleek it is, how it makes him appear elegantly symmetrical.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been working, but when the photographer finally calls his shoot to a close and everyone begins to applaud, Kise is feeling energized. Shoots like this one are a gift sometimes, considering that he doesn’t have to smile for hours on end. He’s long since trained the muscles of his face to attune to such prolonged emoting, but they still get sore nonetheless. Having strained nothing but his ego on this occasion, he practically skips over to Aomine as the photographer calls a “Great work!” after him. He turns back and thanks him, always mindful of his manners, before returning to his trail through various people to get to Aomine. He is only slightly abashed at having Aomine experience his work, though mostly he feels proud and excited about having him there.

Aomine is leaning against the back wall with his hands tucked in his pockets, a frown on his face. That isn’t anything to go off of, really, since he’s always either scowling or frowning. It’s the smirks and the smiles that mean trouble or mischief.

“Not too boring, I hope?” he asks, bouncing to a stop in front of the taller man. Aomine straightens from his propped position, shaking his head once, his eyes appraising Kise with a new look he’s never seen before. It’s almost as if he’s impressed.

“Nah,” he mumbles. “It was actually kind of cool. I could never do this shit. I’d just stand there like an uncooked noodle and get pissed if they told me to change it up. They didn’t even have to instruct you like they did for that guy,” he gestures to the raven-haired model now taking the stage, as the photographer gets ready for him. Kise nods his head, watching his first few pictures and listening to the constructive criticism the photographer offers him. It brings back memories from when he was just a boy, learning everything in the business on his own.

“He’s young,” he explains, looking back to Aomine with a gentle expression. “We’ve all been there. I’ve been around long enough that I’ve learned a thing or two. That guy’s just starting out, you can tell by the way he stands. The way he doesn’t know how to meet the light yet.”

“Right,” Aomine grunts, looking him over as if he isn’t quite sure if he believes that Kise can know the kid is new just by studying his body language. Kise isn’t going to debate it with him, especially when he needs to get back into his own clothes and get Aomine out of there before he hunts Mel down and starts asking her about her blending techniques again—as if he even needed any pointers on the matter. Kise tells him he’ll be right back and not to get into any trouble, wincing playfully when Aomine remarks something about knocking over a display during Kise’s first shoot.

“A total accident,” Aomine monotones. Kise sighs, a great weight on his chest. He rolls his eyes and heads off, altering his order to fit Aomine’s requirements more fully.

“Try not to break anything, just…don’t touch anything.”

He changes back into his clothes and shuffles Aomine from the building, hailing a cab and directing them back to their hotel rooms. Kise is still bouncing from the energy leftover from the shoot and Aomine looks a little bit bored so he decides that they’re going to get dinner. The sun is still in the process of setting and all they need to do is change their clothes and then head back out on the town. Well, Aomine isn’t going to change his clothes, though Kise gives him plenty of opportunities to slip back into his loafers. He’s sure that Aomine has looked up his clients’ and friends’ places in LA and knows where he needs to go, but he doesn’t mention anything about them when Kise asks if he wants to head to dinner. He just accepts, grunting that he’s fucking starving, that the little food carts at the photoshoot had been baby food and rabbit food and a man’s gotta eat.

Kise laughs at him and his indignant look, but regardless, he ends up taking him out for steak and lobster. He even buys him dessert, smirking when he sees what they have to offer. His decision is made right then, sealed with a smirk as Aomine’s eyes find the same name and light like fuses.

Strawberry shortcake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (artfully dodges bullets) If you think I'm going to allow these dorks to do it while Kise is drunk off his buns then you can think AGAIN!! 
> 
> Also, Fact: Kise Ryouta is 100% Ghibli obsessed. His favorite is Howl's Moving Castle. Obviously.


	5. Chapter 5

Kise had told Aomine that at the earliest they’d be able tohead back to Seattle by Friday evening, and although he had thought it waspossible, probably, he hadn’t really thought that they’d actually be so lucky.Turns out, everything ran as smoothly as possible and by the time Kise isputting on his fourth and final suit for the last shoot, the sun is just barely beginning to pass the midpoint in the sky, signaling the transition from afternoon to evening. Aomine has been following some makeup artists around, growling at them in what he seems to think is a politely questioning tone. Kise allows it, how can he not? It’s hilarious, especially since he’s never seen Aomine chase after anyone or anything before. This new development, a pining Aomine of sorts, is one that Kise quite enjoys watching. And laughing at.

If he’s being completely honest with himself, he’d kind of hoped that things wouldn’t have run as smoothly as they had. He’d wanted to spend as much time with Aomine as he could, and here in LA they were alone and they were free for two nights at the least. They’d gone to dinner and had lunch together and it had all been awesome. But now it’s clear without Kise even saying anything that they’re going to be able to catch a flight back to Seattle that night, that their little vacation is basically over. Kise doesn’t let how bummed he is about that show, rather he keeps his sunny disposition all the way through the shoot and approaches Aomine afterwards. 

Mel had been right; this shoot was totally his style, a lot more fun and a lot less rugged than the day before. He’s in his favorite outfit of the day, a silk suit that’s tailored to perfection over his body, the material a bright, cotton candy pink. He has a cutely ruffled white button up underneath with a straight, black silk tie tucked into an equally pink waistcoat that can only be seen as a triangle of fabric above the jacket’s topmost button. His hair is slicked back and parted at the side again, suave and sleek. When he comes to a stop in front of Aomine he can’t help but laugh at the pinched expression he sees on his face. 

“God, you look ridiculous.” Aomine blurts, raising a brow as he glances over all of that pink fabric, a smirk on his face. Compared to his almost entirely black getup Kise is sure they look to be polar opposites, Kise and his fair skin and mop of golden hair, strong body tucked away in a pink suit, looking like a popsicle of some kind. And then there’s Aomine with his olive skin and short dark hair, body exposed in a pair of skinny black jeans that are frayed at the edges just below his knees, showing off his tattooed calves and ankles. His shirt is, surprisingly enough, not black, but rather a plain white tee with Nicki Minaj on the front of it. He is still wearing his fuck you Vans, though.

“I thought I looked quite dashing.” Kise laughs, striking a pose. Mel is carrying a box full of supplies in her hands as she walks past them and heads towards the makeup stations. 

“Same,” she says flippantly, breezing past. Aomine scowls at her and watches her go before turning back to a smirking Kise with a strained expression.

“Would it really kill you to admit that I look hot?” Kise laughs, giving him a pointed look and smacking his bicep playfully before heading over to change his outfit. He’s still grinning as he slips out of the fabric and back into a plain white tee with a thickly threaded charcoal sweater and tight black jeans. As he heads back over to where Aomine is standing, hands crossed over his chest and staring down at his feet in what looks to be intense concentration, Kise reaches a hand up to tuck his hair behind his ear, distracted enough to forget that his hair is slicked back. 

He snorts at himself as he comes up beside Aomine, tilting his head to catch his downturned eyes. Aomine straightens slowly, as if the movement was measured, and turns his eyes over to Kise. There’s something about his expression that Kise can’t put his finger on, can’t exactly translate into words. He looks almost like he wants to say something but some part of him won’t allow it. There’s conflict written clearly over his features, a tug-of-war of indecision in his eyes. It’s not really Kise’s place to say anything, he thinks, so instead he just reaches up and sets his hand on the cascade of Aomine’s shoulder blade, steering him towards the exit. 

They walk down to the cab in companionable silence, Kise smiling and vibrant and Aomine scowling and surprisingly fidgety. He keeps glancing over at Kise, sometimes looking as though he’s about to speak and other times just looking. Kise ignores it and in doing so encourages it to keep happening, since Aomine clearly thinks he’s being sneaky. Kise wonders what he’s seeing that is so interesting, so catching that it keeps bringing him back for more. He doesn’t have any strange makeup on and this isn’t the first time Aomine has seen him with his hair slicked back. He isn’t wearing anything special, though the outfit is a little dryer than what he usually wears, but it’s comfortable and he isn’t trying to impress anyone other than Aomine, but, well. Kise has worn several different styles since he’d met Aomine, all of them chosen because he’d liked them, but he might have deliberately shifted through them in an attempt to see if any of them might catch Aomine’s eyes. But Aomine hasn’t ever looked at his outfits more than was ordinary, except for the first time he’d ever met him, when he’d been wearing his favorite kitten sweater. 

They sit in silence the entire cab ride over to the restaurant they’ve agreed upon for dinner, and Kise starts to wonder if maybe he did something wrong. He’s looking for the details in Aomine’s expressions now, because he doesn’t want to read the situation wrong and make it awkward for Aomine, or for the both of them. But all he sees whenever he looks over at his companion is that usual scowl and a strange downward tilt to his brows, as if he’s thinking something over extra hard. 

Kise runs the past two days back over in his head, trying to remember if there was ever a moment that would require Aomine to lapse into such an intense state of mental evaluation. He can’t come up with anything useful and eventually he just gives up, because what‘s the point? If Aomine has something to say, he’ll say it. Kise knows that that’s just the kind of guy he is. So he stops overanalyzing the situation and just lives in the moment, leaning his head back and resting as the cab moves along the road. He can feel Aomine’s gaze on his face again but he doesn’t open his eyes, he just allows it and lets himself feel content by it. 

The evening continues on in this same fashion all the way through their return to the hotel to pack their things and Aomine explains that he’s meeting a few of his colleagues and clients for drinks, leaving Kise alone to stew from the silent treatment he’s been on the receiving end of. He doesn’t let himself stew for long, though. He keeps himself busy by checking and updating his blogs, interacting with fans, and responding to both work-related and non-work related e-mails. By the time he’s back on his Pinterest, re-pinning a mix of fashion, food, and baby animals, Aomine steps through the doorway to their room. He greets Kise with a nod that signals that he’s ready to go, since he’d packed before he’d left. He doesn’t say much about his meet-up other than that they're great people and he's glad to have been able to hang out with them, that he’s missed the leisure of not having to worry about anything but rather just sit and talk about tattoos and piercings for the pure pleasure of them. Kise listens attentively, not wanting to crowd the space that is between them with the sound of his own voice—not now that Aomine is finally speaking.

Regardless, it eventually falls back through to that strangely strained silence all the way through the cab ride to the airport and up until they are seated on the plane. That’s when Kise thinks that Aomine has finally figured out what it is he’s wanted to say all evening, what he’s been holding back. The delivery, when it finally comes, leaves Kise pleasantly surprised. 

“Kise, do you enjoy your job?” When Kise turns his head away from the nighttime landscape outside his window seat and looks over at Aomine just beside him, he takes a moment to study his eyes. Aomine doesn’t look away from him, doesn’t hide any of the secrets his eyes are so clearly roiling over. Kise admires that aspect of him—how utterly honest he is. He’s always thought that Aomine is just too lazy to come up with lies, but over time he’s learned that it’s more than that, though laziness definitely has a small hand in it. Aomine is calculating in his own ways, too, but they’re never secretive. He lays his hand out all at once, unabashedly confident. Now that he’s thinking about it, Kise has never seen him worried or concerned about getting hurt. Even when he lays his thoughts out bare for everyone to see, he’s never been embarrassed or ashamed. He just  _is_.

For someone like Kise, who spends so much of his time deflecting and withholding information, it’s amazing that someone can be so open and honest. And it’s more than that, too. It’s not only his openness with others, his nature to be straightforward with them regardless of the topic, but the fact that he is just as honest with himself. Kise has never seen him deny himself anything he wants, has never seen him hesitate to pursue whatever course of action he feels would emphasize his best options. His calculation isn’t subversive, it’s blatant and in your face and  _natural_. He doesn’t have to work at it like Kise or Momoi do, doesn’t have to sit around plotting and planning. He just  _does_ , without any of the interference of the middle ground.

When Kise has studied his resolute eyes for a long moment, he slowly nods his head, a gentle smile spilling over his face like fresh ink on a blank canvas, lighting him up from the inside out. 

“I do,” he says. Aomine studies him right back, eyes inquisitive before he’s nodding his head in response. 

He says, “It seems like a fun career, but tiring. There are a lot of people to please.”

“That’s true,” Kise nods. “But isn’t almost every career like that? With so many people to please? I mean you’re doing permanent art on people’s bodies. That’s so stressful!”

“Nah,” Aomine interjects, shaking his head and curling his lip slightly in thought.

“For me the actual tattooing and piercing parts aren’t stressful. I just…do it. It’s easy, like breathing. I don’t even have to think about it. It’s making sure they’re safe after they leave that stresses me out. So many things can go wrong when dipshits don’t pay attention to the rules we give them.”

Kise chokes on a laugh. “Word of advice? Don’t ever tell your clients that you aren’t thinking about the tattoo when you do it. That might freak them out a bit. I really hope the rest of your employees are more focused than you, geez.”

Aomine smirks, the first crack in his mask of solemnity since they’d left the shoot.

“They pay attention. I’m the only one skilled enough to do what I do.”

Kise just shakes his head at the arrogant smirk that slips onto Aomine’s face, lighting his entire expression up like a lit fuse. He says something sassy and sarcastic in response, but Aomine’s grin is unrepentant. Aomine shifts a little as someone with a massive carry-on slips by him down the isle, bringing him into Kise’s personal space. He doesn’t move back right away, his grin still cocky and amused. Kise’s grinning too, can’t help but reciprocate because the happiness on Aomine’s face is infectious. Aomine clears his throat.

“Hey, with your job though, don’t you…don’t you mind all the travel? I mean, it doesn’t bother you that you’re constantly moving around, never getting to stay in one place for long?”

Kise is leaning over and grabbing a snack from his bag on the ground when he hears Aomine speak, so he doesn’t notice the expression on Aomine’s face. He doesn’t notice how Aomine swallows heavily, a little nervous, unsure if he’s given too much away too soon—doesn’t see the look in his eyes, answering all the questions Kise has been asking for months. Instead, he speaks to his granola bar, tearing the wrapper open and biting a piece off.

“I enjoy the travel! I get to meet a lot of new people, fans and clients and friends. I don’t mind living in hotels, either. I’m usually in penthouse suites, so I never lack for comfort…it is a little difficult sometimes, though, having to leave things behind—people behind. That’s probably the worst part of my career.” Kise sobers slightly, finally realizing how close to his main worries this conversation has become. He gets so flustered about it that he forgets that he isn’t even the one to have brought it up in the first place—that  _Aomine_ was the one thinking about Kise’s lifestyle of leaving people behind.

“But you know, I get to explore so many beautiful places and learn about so many different cultures. I’ve worked very hard, but I’m also very lucky.” He grins over at Aomine, regardless of the fact that he has granola bar in his mouth. Aomine stares at him, studies his smile, and nods his head.

“Mm,” he hums, turning back to face forward, ending the conversation. Kise’s smile wilts slightly and he’s about to turn back to his window to watch them take off down the runway, night lights flashing by, when Aomine speaks up one last time.

Pensive and nonchalant, Aomine says, “You did look hot.”

Kise glances immediately over to him, eyes wide and mouth agape. But Aomine isn’t looking at him, has his head resting back against his headrest and his eyes closed. When the silence presses on, he clarifies.

“In that… _pink_ suit. Who the fuck makes pink suits?” The way he wraps his mouth around the word pink makes it sound like a disease, his rhetorical question a mere grumbling afterthought. Kise laughs in surprise, his heart soaring in his chest.

“Thanks,” he accepts, because what else is he going to say? That he thinks that Aomine looks hot in literally anything, and probably in nothing, and that even his ridiculous muscle tanks make Kise hot? He wants to make it through this vacation without embarrassing himself in front of the dude he’s in love with, thanks. He leans back in his seat as the plane lifts into the air and his mind whirs like a broken, sparking motor, hearing Aomine’s confession over and over like a broken record. His heart feels like a bird let out of a cage for the first time in its life, fluttering around inside his chest like a constant thriving shiver. Aomine is falling asleep beside him and that alone makes Kise want to laugh at the irony of being on edge and a little hyper at Aomine calling him  _hot_  while the man himself is tired enough to be dozing off. He’s almost asleep, his hands relaxing in his lap over the blanket he’d wrapped over his legs when Kise hears his sleepy mumble.

“ _Hot_  pink.”

Kise leans back in his seat, pressing his lips to his shoulder to hide the fact that he’s absolutely beaming.

 

✧

 

Kise is officially down to his last three months in Seattle and he can’t stop thinking about it. He feels like his time is ticking by so quickly it matches the pace of his heartbeat, pounding several seconds past him before he can even take in a single gulp of air. There is so much left he wants to do, wants to see, wants to experience with his friends. They’ve been going to clubs and bars and lunches and dinners and yet there is still so much missing that he feels like he’s going to be robbed of because of his time limit. He refuses to think about how he’s going to come clean to Aomine, pushing the actual confrontation to the back of his mind. Momoi had gotten most of it out of him and had not been pleased when he’d explained his insistence on not telling Aomine yet.

He understands her irritation at that. She is Aomine’s best friend, after all, and she will want to protect him from all that she can, but Kise is her friend too. She cares about him and wants to protect him as well, and even more so, she wants to see the both of them happy, preferably together, though the jury is still out on that one. She’d mentioned having plans with Aomine after his and Kise’s return from Los Angeles, something of a dinner date and shopping trip, where she plans to bring up his complete lack of romantic pursuit. When Kise had asked her if that was a good idea, she’d shrugged and said something about it being a sure thing that Aomine would bring up Riko, and that would make it fair.

Kise, for what felt like the first time in  _months_ , has a complete day off from any work-related circumstances. So rather than sleeping the entire day away like he definitely could have, he’s out grocery shopping for some much needed nutrients and produce. His refrigerator is still embarrassingly sparse and he’s tired of having cereal for breakfast every day.

He isn’t quite sure what it is about grocery store trips, but he just can’t show up in pajamas or sweats or any of the other comfortable yet unfashionable trends that the usual crowd seems to maintain. If he’s going out and about, he has to at least make it up to his usual good-looking standard, just because he feels most comfortable that way. So for this particular trip, he has on a cream colored button-up collared shirt with a rust colored sweater overtop, with thin navy and white vertical pinstriped pants cuffed at his calves, leaving them and his ankles exposed before leading into a pair of leather Oxfords. It’s a simple yet trendy ensemble and it keeps him warm in the cold air but doesn’t make him roast in the heated interior of the shops he frequents. 

He has a cart full of nutritional and affordable foods; with an absolute bounty of bagged fruits that he isn’t even certain he can finish on his own. This is why he usually doesn’t go grocery shopping on an empty stomach—it always makes his bill bigger in the end because he is just  _so hungry_. At least this time around he knows he can convince Momoi to come help him polish the fruits off with him, maybe even finagle a sleepover out of the woman, though she always seems to bail on him in the early morning. He isn’t stupid; he saw the connection early on between his hotel and its closeness to one Riko Aida’s apartment and how Momoi often wandered over there unannounced just to spend time with her lady love.

Frowning as he turns a peach over in his hands, reaching up to take in the fresh smell of it, he wonders how Aomine is doing. He knows that he’s spending the day with Momoi and really there’s no way he isn’t having a good time with her, but he still wonders what it’d be like to join them. Would Aomine act any differently given his presence? He wouldn’t. Kise’s certainty at this thought surprises him, leaves him a little confused because he honestly doesn’t know how he knows, he just  _does._ He can roll his eyes at himself, honestly, with how caught up in his own mind he so often gets when it comes to his strangely in-tune connection with Aomine.

He doesn’t press on it. Instead, he bags his peaches and heads out of the produce section of the store, looking for noodles. He makes a mean spinach and chicken pasta dish, a family recipe, that he has been telling Momoi about for  _weeks_. Now that he’s finally here, at the grocery store, he can get the ingredients and actually have her sit down and share in the delightful deliciousness that is his mom’s most prized dish. It doesn’t hurt that it is both delicious and healthy, though he knows Momoi won’t care either way.

He’s just turning down the necessary isle when he feels his phone vibrating in his pocket, dipping a hand in to retrieve it even as he continues searching for the type of noodles he needs for the dish. He lifts the phone to his ear without checking the caller ID, greeting the person on the other end a little distractedly.

“She said yes.” Momoi’s voice comes through to him, surprisingly shaky. Kise immediately focuses in on it, on her, and frowns when he realizes that she sounds anxious.

He trips over his words, asking, “What? Who?"

“ _Riko_.” Momoi’s tone is a slash of impatience; though her next words are said in such a way that Kise knows she didn’t meant to lash out at him. “She finally said yes!”

“She said yes to what?” Kise cringes, trying to keep up.

Momoi sighs, unperturbed. “Well okay, it’s a little complicated. You know how I asked her out on a date a couple times? Like super long ago, just hopeful shots in the dark? And she always turned me down?”

“Yeah,” he replies slowly, waiting.

“Well I didn’t ask her again—I haven’t asked her since, you know,  _that time_ , but then we were texting each other like we usually do and she mentioned how I’d asked her if she’d ever been to Zoka Coffee and I was like sure, of course I remember, I mean that is my favorite coffee shop, and then she just  _asked me out._ ”

“She wants to go to Zoka Coffee with you?” Kise pieces together, laughing lightly at the realization that Momoi is rambling, that she’s  _nervous_. This is so uncharacteristic of her it makes Kise’s heart soar, knowing that after all of her time hoping for something, anything with Riko that she has finally succeeded. That maybe, just maybe, Riko is coming to terms with the fact that she has feelings beyond friendship for Momoi and that she wants to pursue them. That she isn’t unsure anymore.

Momoi’s voice is insistent, triumphant. “ _Yes_.”

“Momocchi!” Kise practically squeals, bouncing in place in front of the noodle section. “That’s awesome! That’s so awesome! I don’t know how you’re even keeping your cool right now, to be honest, I’d literally be flailing around and there might even be celebratory dancing, who even knows!”

“Oh my God, no, I’m  _losing_  it! I literally ditched Aomine in Sephora to call you right now and I’m pretty sure he’s in there legitimately thinking about making an eye-shadow purchase, which is so concerning to me on so many levels because  _Aomine_  in  _eye shadow,_  but I can’t even take the time to care, let alone breathe, because  _she said yes._ To me! I am going on a date with Riko Aida!”

“Wait, I don’t want to bring down this hype at all, I swear,” Kise listens to Momoi groan in his ear, smiling charismatically even though she can’t see him. “Does she…know that it’s a date, Momocchi?”

There is the whooshing sound of a relieved, almost blissful sigh. “She does. Isn’t that incredible? She totally accepts it as a date. She was the one to bring it all up, too! I didn’t even say anything forward this time, holy shit.”

“Well obviously I want  _details_ , but I don’t want to encroach on yours and Aomine’s play date. Momocchi you should’ve seen him harassing the makeup artists at my shoot, I think I’ve created a monster.”

“So  _you’re_  the one to blame! He was mentioning the most obscene colors, too. Like this flaming red one called Slow Burn? And this bright purple called Chaos? And something  _hot pink_ called Savage, for heaven’s sake. What the hell does he think he’s going to do with those? I mean I’m all for him trying out makeup and wearing the heck out of them because let’s be real, Aomine could pull it off." 

“Damn right,” Kise agrees, picturing Aomine in his normal all-black ensemble with teal shadow on his lids, highlighting the already dangerously bright gleam of his glares. He snorts, picking his preferred noodle type off the shelf and discarding it into his cart. All he has left to grab is the sauce. Momoi is back to rambling in his ear, obviously agreeing with him on not wanting to disturb her time with Aomine but also wanting to give him as many details as possible over the phone.

“She was so blasé about it too, like I haven’t been in love with her since high school and we both know it. She was basically like, ‘that coffee shop sounds really cool and I’d love it if I could take you there.’ Like  _she_  could take  _me_  there. Can you believe that? I am the person being pursued in this scenario. It’s fucking unreal.”

“It’s frickin’ amazing, that’s what it is! God, but you deserve this date. You deserve to have her chasing after you for a change. And I know you’re way too good of a person, way too loving, to make her pine but damned if I don’t sort of want you to. It’s taken her way too damn long to figure out you’re the best thing that’s ever gonna happen to her.”

Momoi snorts. “Okay, you are beautiful and I love you but you are so biased and blowing so much sunshine up my ass right now I can’t even handle you.”

“Regardless,” Kise says flippantly, turning his cart carefully down the correct isle and mouthing an apology to a man he almost hits with his cart. “I’m so happy for you. I could cry right now, I’m so happy.”

“You know you’re going to have to come over and make sure I look presentable, right? Like obviously I can dress myself and make myself look stellar, but I still want you to be there before I kick you to the curb and take my lady out for coffee and pastries.”

“I’ll become intimately acquainted with the curb if it means you get to enjoy every second of this glorious moment, your  _first date_. So of course I’ll be there to consult and tell you how kickass you look. Real talk though, Aomine is probably spending his entire paycheck on strange and absurd electric eye shadow and maybe even complete pallets right now, so you should probably go help him out. Or just escort him away from Sephora immediately.” 

Momoi sighs on the other end, grudgingly admitting that retrieving Aomine from the store is a necessity to the survival of his hard-earned paycheck. They chatter for a few more minutes, bubbly and excited and high on the good news before Momoi bids him a good afternoon, promising to give him even more details later. He’s gotten the most important ones, he knows, like the time and the place and the fact that Riko had initiated the date herself. But still, this is a moment that Momoi had only ever dreamed of, and now that it’s become a reality, she is so beyond entitled to talk about it for weeks on end.

Kise feels lighter as the cashier rings up his purchases and gives him his total. He’s bottled up sunshine leaking through the cracks and he doesn’t care who knows it. One of his closest friends, if not his absolute closest, has basically just had a dream become reality. Of course there is a flickering moment of that insistent voice in his head wishing that he might also get his dream to come true, that Aomine might show some real interest and ask him out on a date. But then again, Kise has never asked Aomine out, has never shown his interest outright, not like Momoi has. Momoi has more than earned her happiness. She has put herself out there and has even been repeatedly shut down and rejected, even literally pushed away before she was able to succeed.

Kise really doesn’t have any room to talk about his own plight in relationships. He has not put himself out there. This is a fact he hasn’t even considered before this, that he’s expecting Aomine to do all the work and experience the fear and the uncertainty that comes with stepping past friendship and wondering at romantic intimacy. Kise has showed interest and has been flirtatious, sure, but he’s never outright told Aomine that he is interested in  _more_.

More than the kisses they shared a week ago, more than the one night together that they had almost had together. More than the three months he has left in this city.

There is the consolation that he’s been pretty uncertain as to how he is going to approach Aomine, anyways. He has known from the start that he’s leaving, that something lasting would either be impossible or unimaginably difficult to maintain. Part of him has known that it’s probably safer for both of them to just stay friends, to let all of the rampant feelings Kise has for Aomine stay under the surface so that neither of them gets hurt in the end.

But another part of him that he still feels, now more so than ever, craves Aomine in ways Kise has never craved anyone in his entire life. He’s been stuck in the crossroads of the two thoughts and all the while his behaviors have strayed towards flirtatious and pining and moving forward with that whole  _wanting more_  deal. His body had known what it wanted even before his mind could decide on the best, safest option. He has yet to come to a solid conclusion, a single path to follow that feels truly right for the both of them.

But that was the problem with his thinking, wasn’t it? By trying to make moves for Aomine, regardless of the fact that each of those moves were made to protect him, he was denying Aomine of his own agency. And that is so beyond fucked up. He does not have the power or the right to decide things for Aomine, to decide what is best for him. He only has the power to decide what  _he_ wants and what  _he_ needs. He had spent so much time confused at what to do, factoring in his wants and needs with Aomine’s potential wants and needs, the safety of both of their hearts and feelings, and he still hadn’t known what was best for them. He’d been overanalyzing, thinking too much and feeling too little. The irony of this sudden realization, in a checking isle of the local grocery store, is that by relinquishing control of his unbridled thought processes; his feelings lead him straight to the answer.

He knows now. And of course, as everything seems to be with him, it’s complicated. He enjoys Aomine, likes the gruff and offensive way he speaks, his absolutely horrendous fashion sense, his dark skin and light eyes, the passion that overrules all of the above whenever he sits down with a client to talk tattoos. He’s attracted to the way Aomine moves, the way he holds himself and does business, the way he’s so verbally abrasive but every touch on a stranger’s skin is gentle.

Kise loves him.

There is no question or confusion about it. It’s simple, like breathing. He loves him. Deep breath in, deep breath out, Kise Ryouta loves Aomine Daiki.

Somewhere in-between all the chaos of their relationship, Kise has become invested in Aomine—he wants to keep him safe, to see him happy, to watch him grow and chase his passions. And the most terrifying but clearest testimony to Kise’s affections: he wants to share himself with Aomine. He wants to tell him things no other human being knows about Kise, to whisper them into the darkness between them in bed, to let his secrets fall over them like a draft through the room, to settle into their skin like chills drawing lines down their backs. He wants to know Aomine’s secrets too, to tuck them into the heart of him and protect them beneath muscle and blood and bone and flesh. To cherish them and swathe them within himself where they can be accepted and validated.

Kise wants so much more than he’s ever expected, and it’s terrifying. This is so much more complicated now that he understands his own feelings, now that he’s shut down his overanalyzing mind and just let himself  _feel_. And now he’s sitting here with a heart that’s too big for his chest and the knowledge that he’s going to have to leave. Realizing the true meaning of his feelings has changed everything for him, and yet, even still, in the end it changes nothing about his situation.

He will still have to leave.

Kise is retrieving his credit card from the cashier when he notices the young woman standing behind him in line holding so many groceries in her arms it’s a wonder she doesn’t tip over.

“Excuse me, do you need help? Got quite a load, there.” He moves around so that she can see who’s talking to her, smiling warmly when her wide brown eyes meet his, her frown turning up into an amused smile.

“Oh, I’m okay,” she huffs, and then suddenly she dips and heaves and deposits the entire handful onto the conveyer belt leading to the register. She shrugs her shoulders, rotating one arm playfully as she turns to smile up at him now that there’s nothing between them, her eyes pinched closed.

“Thanks for the offer, though!” She chirps, obviously a little self-satisfied.

When her eyes open and meet his once again, she actually flinches and takes a literal step backwards. Her eyes trace over the length of him, leaping from thigh to thigh, devouring his midsection and lavishing on his arms under his sweater before meeting his eyes once more. Kise has never felt so exposed in his life, not even when he did that underwear shoot with the thong. He feels like she can see right through him, like her eyes had traced every single muscle of his body, but the strangest feeling is left behind.

Her gaze had been direct, sure, that was an understatement, but it hadn’t been lascivious. It had been an intense perusal, an examination, almost as though she was surveying the very structure and form of his body. Her eyes are shining, so bright with interest and curiosity he wonders how exactly she’s even seeing him. Without even really knowing he’s doing so, he lifts a hand to rub at the back of his neck self-consciously, watching as her eyes cut to the unconsciously flexed bicep curled by his head. He hears the breath literally wheeze right through her lips at the sight.

“Ma’am?” The cashier asks, glancing between the two of them suspiciously. She stutters an apology, both to the man at the register and to Kise. As he brushes it off and begins to turn and take his groceries from the counter, he glances over hers and is surprised at the variety of it all. There’s a little bit of absolutely everything, like she isn’t sure what she wants to make exactly, but that whatever she chooses is probably going to be decadent. He wonders if she’s a professional chef.

He’s about to head back outside when she hurriedly addresses him, handing the cashier her card at the same time.

“Wait! I’m sorry, this is weird, I know, but could you hold up just a minute?” Surprised, Kise finds himself nodding as he moves out of the way of passersby. He slips his bags onto his forearms and holds two in his hands as he waits for her to finish up, smiling questioningly when she finally turns back to him, arms full of bags now. She smiles pleasantly, nodding to the doors and walking beside him as they head out to the storefront.

“Did you need something?” he asks, his tone curious and as polite as he can make it. He wonders if she’s a fan and wants a picture or something, which would make this encounter a little more explicable, though not enough for him to feel like he’s actually aware of what is even happening right now.

“Do you play sports?” she asks instead, glancing up at him. He studies her jaw-length brunette hair peeking out from a dark green beanie, glances over her short-sleeve white button-up with a black short-sleeve sweater laying over it. Her short legs are tucked into maroon skinny jeans and when he glances down he sees that her feet are absolutely tiny and that she's wearing a pair of Converse. Her skin is flawless and unmarred, her eyes deep and bright and alluring. For some reason, Kise feels like he recognizes her, though he is certain he’s never seen or met her before in his life. 

“I don’t, not anymore.” He explains after a brief moment of silence.

“Oh,” she whispers, and Kise raises a brow at the dejected tone of it. She sounds regretful, almost like knowing that he doesn’t play sports is a personal blow to her as a person. For some reason, Kise finds himself moving to elaborate, watching her face shift and change.

“I used to play basketball in high school and I guess a little on the streets after that. Why do you ask?” her eyes light like flames, a passion flickering there that surprises Kise. She turns to him and shakes her head, laughing a little nervously.

“I’m sorry if that was a weird thing to ask, it’s just that you look like you’d be a really incredible athlete. It’s hard to tell like this, but I’ve got a special…talent. Anyways, I’m sorry to have bothered you! I was actually going to try to recruit you if you’d been any sort of athlete. With a body like yours, it wouldn’t even matter what sport. I’m sure you’d be incredible at them all! Which probably sounds weird. Sorry, again.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it! I’m flattered. Do you play sports?” he watches her lips twist, turning her smile into something furtive and dangerous.

“Oh, no,” she says, laughing. “I don’t play. I coach and I train.”

“You sound like a scary coach and trainer!” Kise admits honestly, laughing so much his eyes crinkle at the sides. She smirks up at him, bobbing her head in amused acceptance of that fact.

“I get good results.” She says cryptically, and Kise feels a shiver run down his spine.  _Scary,_ he thinks, looking down at her with a new perspective. Despite her small size, he knows from her expressions and the gleams he’s seen in her eyes that she is a force to be reckoned with, that she’s intense and confident in her skills. And that, he thinks, makes her especially scary. He suddenly feels bad for her team, wherever they are out there. Anyone who is on the sharp end of that smile would probably be sore for a week afterwards, easily.

“Well, thanks for humoring my questions! Gotta head out now. Take care of yourself.” She lifts a heavily weighed-down arm full of bags to wave as she turns to head in the opposite direction, grinning when he returns the farewell. He finds himself laughing at the encounter, shaking his head and wondering what kind of person she really is, to call out a stranger and ask the things she had. He guesses it isn’t much different than when he’d been a child scouted by modeling agencies, not at all. Except that they hadn’t been powerhouses that only came up to his chest but felt like an impending storm bottled up and ready to burst.

“Interesting,” he laughs, shifting his groceries and allowing the thought of her to slip away. Instead, he begins to focus on the fact that he finally has the appropriate ingredients to make his mom’s famous pasta dish, and that Momoi is going to  _love_ it. It’s definitely possible that he skips merrily down the sidewalk the rest of the way back to his hotel, lifting his face to the rare bout of sunshine slipping through the clouds.

 

✧

 

Kise isn’t entirely certain how he ends up crowded between Aomine and Momoi at Kagami and Kuroko’s apartment with all of them in their pajamas playing the most heated game of Mario Kart in the history of ever, but here he is. One moment he’s on the phone with Kagami being invited over for dinner with him and Kuroko, and then Momoi and Aomine as well, and the next he’s biting his lip hard enough to almost draw blood, watching as his Yoshi dodges one banana only to run right into a wayward green shell.

“What the hell!” he shouts, pounding his back into the couch cushions as Aomine laughs maniacally on his left side and Momoi snickers on his right, with Kagami shouting something encouraging from the kitchen. Kuroko is as silent as ever, his Toad sitting calmly in last place but wielding a very dangerous star power. Aomine’s Wario is sitting pretty in first place, with two green shells coursing around his kart and his plump purple ass throwing all his momentum into an oncoming curve in the track. Momoi’s Peach is in third but with a single glance at her corner of the screen Kise swallows, knowing that if he gets anywhere close to Aomine’s Wario he’s going to become collateral. 

“Do it,” he whispers menacingly, quiet enough that Aomine can’t make it out and grunts questioningly in response, but Momoi is smirking wildly and pounds the appropriate button with a viciousness Kise can appreciate. The leader shell shoots past Yoshi, who is riding as close to the edge of the rail-less rainbow road as he can get without falling off to the certainty of a last-place seat, as Kuroko had done earlier in the race. Even though he wants desperately to see it happen, he can’t tear his eyes from his own screen, can’t let Yoshi slip off the course. It turns out hearing the reaction is pleasant enough to suffice without the actual visual.

“Eat my fucking ass you pieces of—what is that sound? Wait I know that sound, no, wait, fuck, are you kidding me? No, no! Satsuki you piece of shit! FUCK!” Aomine slams his controller down on the ground as the leader shell blasts Wario straight up in the air and he bounces closer and closer to the edge of the road, one of his kart’s wheels tipping over the edge. Aomine’s up on his feet in an instant and back to his cross-legged sitting position an instant after that, leaning towards the screen and growling at Wario to stay the fuck on the track, no matter what, you  _compact piece of shit!_

Kise can’t help it, he honestly can’t—not after Aomine has just won the past seven tracks in a row and bragged  _incessantly_  about each and every one. So instead of passing calmly by to take the lead, he does what any competitive Mario Kart racer looking for blood does: he swerves and taps Wario that little extra bit that’s needed for him to tip over the side of the track, falling and falling before being reset so slowly he’s only a few seconds in front of Toad.

Aomine is glaring so vehemently at Kise it’s a wonder his head is still on his shoulders, that a hole hasn’t zapped through his brain. Kise keeps his eyes on the prize—literally; they’re on the last lap and the finish line is  _right there_. Aomine is growling obscenities and curses that Kise is sure a sailor has never even heard before by the time Yoshi crosses the finish line, but that isn’t even the end of the carnage. He hears the telltale music that comes with someone using star power and chokes on his own saliva, turning to watch Aomine’s face lose color, expression, and ultimately a little bit of his life force, if Kise is seeing it right.

Kuroko’s Toad, who has been riding last place the entire time, uses his star power and obliterates Wario in cold blood right as he’s trying to pick up momentum from his drop near last place after his tragic fall.

“That’s fucked up,” Kagami whispers from the doorway to the kitchen, apron-clad and slowly stirring a massive pot of cookie dough while he shakes his head remorsefully.

“The bigger they are,” Momoi begins viciously, as Peach does a cocky sideways drift across the finish line in time to place second, settling her controller in her lap and tying her hands together behind her head, leaning back into the couch arrogantly, completely at ease with the carnage she has just orchestrated against her best friend.

“The harder they fall.” Kise finishes solemnly, turning to flash a smirk at Aomine. He doesn’t even get to finish the race after that. Donkey Kong, of all characters, finishes third and the game cuts away to the victor, rubbing the loss in Aomine’s face. He slowly leans forward, so slowly it’s obvious he’s restraining himself from causing bodily harm, and looks directly into Kuroko’s bland eyes. The smaller man doesn’t even flinch. He then drags his eyes to Momoi’s but she gives the least fucks in the entire apartment so he moves quickly on to Kise’s, taking a good long look into laughing honey-amber irises before he addresses them.

“You are all,” Aomine intones, voice saccharine sweet, “going to regret this day.”

And then, before any of them can laugh in his face or threaten him further, or in Kuroko’s case simply continue to stare blankly at him, Aomine leaps into Kise and pushes him into Momoi who falls into Kuroko’s lap. From there it all erupts into absolute chaos, hands reaching through arms and legs to tickle and pinch and pull at clothing. Kise’s butt is in someone’s face and Momoi’s hair is in his mouth and one of Aomine’s hands is stuck in his armpit. No one can really tell where Kuroko ends up but every now and again Kise can hear him laughing through Aomine’s growling and Momoi’s battle cries. Kise is laughing so hard there are tears in his eyes by the time Kagami comes back from the kitchen, apron discarded and a menacing look in his eyes. 

“DINNER TIME RUSH!” he shouts as he literally leaps up into the air and gives Aomine a perfectly executed People’s Elbow right in the solar plexus. Aomine howls and Kagami verbally worries about Kuroko being on the bottom of this dog pile and how that’s dangerous but he shuts right up when Kuroko reaches a foot through the tangle of limbs and kicks him in the shin. 

“Ah!” Kagami chirps in surprise. “Betrayed by my beloved!”

“Shut up, idiot,” Aomine growls, shoving his head down where it points conveniently into Momoi’s crotch. She shrieks, cursing Aomine and promising to aim at a below-the-belt target, which makes him scramble over the pile so as to escape such a move that will surely end in his defeat, but only ends up landing, quite heavily, atop Kise’s chest. He feels his head snap back and hit the carpet sharply, but he only sees stars for a few seconds as he continues to try to catch his breath through his endless stream of laughter and now the heavy weight of Aomine on top of him. He waits for Aomine to roll off of him, to push up and away, but he never does. He settles lower, his chin touching Kise’s, causing his laughter to gradually die out, his eyes finding Aomine’s and meeting his intense deep ocean gaze.

The boisterous sounds of Momoi, Kagami, and Kuroko still howling, laughing, and wrestling over beside them become muted, background noise in Kise’s ears as he stares up at Aomine, so close to those skilled lips. Aomine moves his arm to brace himself on his forearm next to Kise’s head, his free hand coming forward to play with a few strands of Kise’s hair, twisting them between his deft fingertips. He’s watching the golden strands twist and turn in his grasp but Kise is watching his face, curious and nervous and excited.

Mostly nervous, because there isn’t much space between them and if Aomine moves his hips at all in any direction, with any kind of force, Kise isn’t certain he can prevent himself from embarrassing the both of them. They both ignore the way Kagami’s wayward foot accidentally comes around and jostles them before he leaps back into a headlock from Momoi and a leg bar from Kuroko, yowling like a downed bear. Aomine eventually tucks Kise’s hair behind his ear, his fingertips tracing the line of Kise’s cheekbone, dipping to follow the curve of his jawline to his chin and back before he settles his forehead against Kise’s, his eyes slipping shut. Kise keeps his eyes open, almost cross-eyed while trying to examine Aomine’s peaceful expression so close up. 

They lay that way for a long time; long enough for Kise to realize that the boisterous background noise has settled to a dull hum. He shifts his head slightly to the side, ignoring how Aomine’s piercing eyes open again and study him up close, and sees that Kagami, Momoi, and Kuroko are all lying in a line, panting and sputtering out empty threats and huffs of laughter. The way they’re laying makes it impossible for them to see Aomine and Kise unless they each do a sit-up, but from the looks of it that is just asking too much of them right now.

Kagami grunts something about needing to check on the cookies and Kuroko offers to help him in the kitchen.

“Thanks for the offer to help, but literally all that is left is the cooling process.” Kagami deadpans, and Kuroko smiles over at him shyly. Kagami sighs, reaching over Momoi to grasp Kuroko’s reaching hand in his. They rest their hands on Momoi’s stomach, but she just grunts and mentions being extra hungry now. Kise turns back to the piercing glare he can feel like a physical burn, smiling up at Aomine with a shy expression. Aomine doesn’t smile back, doesn’t even crack his apathetic mask open, but then his eyes are right up in Kise’s face again and there are lips on his lips and a tongue touching lightly against his bottom lip and Kise feels like  _stars_. 

Before he can even reciprocate, before he can even reach a hand up to hold Aomine to him, he’s slipping away, his eyes brighter than Kise has ever seen them before. He stretches a little as he stands, his gray shirt lifting to show a glimpse of his defined abdomen, before reaching down and offering to help Kise back to his feet. It seems fitting, to Kise at least, that the person who’s knocked him off his feet is the one to help him get back on them. 

He takes Aomine’s hands, lets the taller man pull him up and steady him with his hands falling on Kise’s shoulders. They study each other briefly, Kise smiling and Aomine smirking as they turn to their friends, both of them sharing the secret of their intimacy in their tingling lips. Everyone’s pajamas are twisted and ruffled and Kagami’s pants have been pulled down to his knees to show his boxers, which are covered in pastel pastry designs and what looks like random exclamations like  _yum, delicious,_ and Kise’s favorite,  _tasty_. He almost can’t believe a grown man is wearing them, wonders how Kagami has even found them in his size, but then he sees Kuroko smiling at them almost fondly and he realizes,  _oh_. A gift, then. 

Kise isn’t even going to go there. It turns out that Momoi has been awarded the title of Wrestling Champion and is, apparently, undefeated, though there is some grumbling from Aomine at that. Kise can’t wait to hear  _that_  story. But for now, it’s time for them to eat, as Kagami so insistently comments, literally ushering them into the kitchen to the fresh smell of delicious home cooking. Kuroko is setting the table and asking for drink orders, though he says that the Copycat Sonic Ocean Water that Kagami had made them the night before is delicious and should be tried at least once in one’s lifetime. Everyone seems to either agree or know from experience that it’s delicious, and agrees to finish it off. Kise has no idea what the main dish is but he’s heard Kagami mention chicken and mozzarella, so he’s excited nonetheless. Momoi is practically bouncing in her seat, a few seconds away from happily clapping her hands. 

It’s no secret that anything in the kitchen is inexplicably Kagami’s specialty. His cooking and his baking are so good Kise wants to talk about it everywhere he goes, endlessly surprised that The Bakery is a hole in the wall when it could be something so much bigger. But Kuroko and Kagami like it homey, like it small and domestic. They don’t care about the money, don’t care about anything but Kagami’s passion for baking and cooking, and Kuroko’s passion for teaching and for shakes. And Kagami. But mostly the shakes.

“Tonight I made Baked Mozzarella Chicken Rolls! It sounds like a heart attack, I know—quit looking at me like that Kise. It’s healthy. I  _swear_. Look it up!” he adds the last bit to Kise, who winces at the thought of how unhealthy the meal sounds. But at his insistence, Kise is willing to believe him; especially once he sees the look of the rolls. He’s definitely going to look it up later, though. He has his figure to look out for, after all. Aomine doesn’t even wait for everyone to be served before he digs into his food, grumbling a thank you through the chicken rolling around in his mouth. Kuroko kisses Kagami’s cheek and whispers a sincere thank you before sitting down to eat, and Momoi is so enthused by the meal she doesn’t even have to verbally say thank you, it’s in the very air around her. Kagami waits for everyone to take his or her first bite—which isn’t a long wait at all—before he takes his own.

The actual dinner is quiet, mostly because everyone is busy stuffing their faces and slurping down the delicious drinks Kagami has also provided. Kise takes the time to wonder how he and Kuroko are still so fit and begins to really believe the redhead when he says that his meals are often healthy ones, even if they seem anything but. Kise catches a glimpse of the dessert, too, the fresh baked cookies and cute little raspberry creamsicles that Kise is sure he’s going to have several of before allowing himself to relax in his food-coma. Kagami really does have a beautiful touch when it comes to cooking and concocting new and interesting recipes.

Jus the other day Kuroko was telling Kise about Kagami’s Pinterest, which is apparently filled with very specifically chosen walls for each kind of food—normal meals, healthy meals, desserts, summertime snacks, literally anything under the sun and he’s been steadily cracking his way through making them and some of his own unique creations. Once Kuroko had told him Kagami’s handle, Kise had laughed and realized he’s been following Kagami’s Pinterest for years, star-struck and constantly salivating at the pictures he puts up of his own creations. That had made Kuroko smile at him in a way that made him feel like no matter what, he’s in. 

He’s with them forever. 

He smiles. Aomine burps.

Forever.

 

✧

 

As it turns out, Kagami’s divine cooking manages to not only put them into food comas, but knocks them all out before midnight can even roll around. They do squeeze in a few more Mario Kart races before passing out, mostly between Kuroko and Kagami who is now free to play (as Mario, go figure). Kise remembers falling asleep on the couch snuggled into Momoi with Aomine below them on the floor and Kagami and Kuroko still racing each other and ushering quiet threats on Kagami’s end, but when he wakes up he’s the only person in the room. Sitting up and massaging the skin over the new crick in his back, he glances around and assumes that Kagami and Kuroko at least are in their bedroom. He has no idea where Aomine or Momoi have wandered off to, or if they are even still in the apartment.

Getting up and stretching, his white shirt lifts to show a glimpse of his lightly tanned abdomen before he heads into the kitchen area. He knows Kuroko is a late-riser and Kagami is, ironically enough, an early-riser. He doesn’t know a thing about Aomine’s sleeping habits and as it seems that he is the only one awake for now, he decides it is his duty to make breakfast.

He shuffles into the kitchen and twists from side to side a little, cracking his back and releasing the tension in his body. He’s wearing a plain black pair of sweats slung low around his waist and is barefoot as he searches the heavily stocked fridge for breakfast foods. He decides he can’t really go wrong with eggs and bacon, gathering the materials in his hands and starting up the stove. He’s halfway through cracking all the eggs he needs when someone clears their throat in the doorway. He offers an aimless and cheery good morning without looking at them, continuing to pour the eggs into the pan. Aomine comes to stand beside him; looming over his shoulder so close he could’ve rested his chin there. Kise shivers.

“You cook?” he asks, his tone still raspy from sleep and incredibly sexy. Kise isn’t entirely sure, but he has a feeling that Aomine had just woken up a bit ago, too. His shirt is form fitting like sin and his sweatpants are similar to Kise’s, though he has a pair of dirty socks on over his feet. He pulls a chair from the table and sits backwards upon it, resting his arms atop the backrest and his chin atop his arms.

“Rarely,” Kise answers honestly, laughing a little. “And not well. I’m usually too busy or too tired to cook for myself. I eat out a lot for conferences and meetings and things, though the places I usually push for are healthy enough that I barely ever have fast food. I’ve never eaten as many baked goods as I have since I got here, actually.” 

“That tall idiot has a way of making that happen, yeah.” Kise glances over his shoulder, smiling at Aomine as he scratches absently at his ear. Kise finishes cracking the eggs and begins to scramble them, about to move to start the bacon as well. Before he can, however, he hears the scrape of the chair against the kitchen tile and feels rather than sees Aomine move beside him. 

“I can do the bacon.” He says absently. Kise raises a brow.

“You cook?” he asks, unconsciously copying Aomine’s earlier words with an undertone of genuine surprise. He watches as Aomine merely turns to glare at him, pulling the bacon from its case and laying them out on a paper towel in preparation.

“You can call it that.” He finally mutters, and Kise thinks maybe it’s a good idea to keep his eyes on the bacon, even with Aomine’s help. Maybe especially because of Aomine’s help. His response isn’t exactly promising.

They begin to move through the kitchen and around one another, cooking together in comfortable silence. Kise finds himself ignoring the slight confusion whenever Aomine puts a hand on him as he moves around him—on his shoulder, his tailbone, the center of his back, the edge of a hip—and decides that he has no reason not to just accept the touches as they are: signs that Aomine and he have a relationship that involves these kinds of intimate touches. They’ve kissed and they’ve done some touching and Kise is just so tired of analyzing the situation rather than experiencing it. So instead, he experiences it.

Every touch of Aomine’s hand is a living flame against his skin, searing through fabric and leaving lasting impressions even moments after his hand is gone. Aomine has no idea what he’s doing, not with his ostensibly absentminded touches and especially not when it comes to cooking, even with microwaveable bacon, so Kise ends up taking over and explaining the process to him in a gentle tone, not wanting to sound condescending. It’s clear that Aomine appreciates both the explanation and the lack of condescension accompanying it, as he perches right next to Kise and watches his hands work, his eyes glancing up frequently to check Kise’s, almost as though the knowledge only locks into place once he’s met Kise’s gaze. 

A little flushed and blaming it completely on his close proximity to the heated pan of scrambled eggs he’s just finished, Kise moves away from Aomine to set the eggs aside, off the flame. He sets a saltshaker next to the pan, just in case any of them want to add a small serving atop their eggs or something. Aomine only burns five pieces of bacon before he gets the hang of grilling them in a pan, since Kise told him they’ll taste better that way than if they’re cooked in the microwave. Kise eats three of the burnt bacon pieces because he doesn’t want to hurt Aomine’s feelings any more than already had been done at the sight of the crispy things. Aomine had looked down at them like each of them insulted him personally, until Kise picked one up and ate it in two bites, muttering around the crunch that he likes his a little extra crispy.

As they finish the bacon once and for all, Aomine and Kise stand before the pan and the plate of bacon, feeling like the meal is incomplete.

“What more can we add?” Kise wonders aloud, reaching back to scratch a sudden itch he feels on his back, in a place that is just out of reach. Aomine grunts, not knowing the answer though he’s still frowning down at the bacon so Kise knows he’s a little distracted in hoping his portion of the cooking adventure tastes up to par. When he finally meets Kise’s eyes, the corner of his mouth ticks up in amusement.

“You think fruits? Like some raspberries or blueberries?” The itch on his back isn’t going away and by now he’s straining his elbow in the awkward curl of his arm behind him. Aomine nods his head, moving to walk behind him over to the fridge to grab some fruits and hopefully begin making some sort of fruit salad. He pauses just behind Kise, lifting a hand to scratch gently at the spot Kise had not been able to reach, relieving Kise’s irritation at not getting the itch scratched. He sighs happily, shifting under Aomine’s gentle ministrations so that he covers the entire surface area of the itch and then turning to thank him, cheeks flushed. Aomine shrugs his heavy shoulders before a sudden smirk lights his face, his eyes.

“I scratched your back, so I’ll be expecting you to scratch mine.” His voice holds a promise Kise wants to rise up and endorse. He doesn’t want to back down from that tone, low and sultry and promising of something Kise will probably never forget. Even though he’s so straightforward that it’s usually obvious what Aomine is thinking, sometimes he surprises those around him. Sometimes he will say something in a certain way that makes people look at him twice, study the line of his mouth and the gleam of his beautiful eyes before moving forward. This is one of those rare times. Kise isn’t certain that Aomine had meant to sound so seductive or if he’s just happy to now have one over on Kise. But Kise has promised himself that he was done overanalyzing the situation with Aomine and as such he continues forth bravely and without pause. His voice is every bit the promise Aomine’s had been when he responds, a breathy whisper he doesn’t even try to veil.

“Oh, I won’t forget it.” He moves to the fridge and pulls out a combination of fruits before turning to find Aomine already waiting beside him with a bowl to mix them in. They prepare a fruit salad of strawberries, honeydew, cantaloupe, and blueberries to go with the breakfast, not really looking at one another. Momoi stumbles into the kitchen blearily wiping sleep out of her eyes a few minutes later and greets them huskily before plopping down in a seat at the table.

Sleepy eyes open wide and Momoi chirps, “You guys made breakfast? Whose birthday is it?”

“Shut up, Satsuki.” Aomine growls, making her a plate. It’s apparent that he knows what he’s doing, given their history together. He sets it in front of her and passes her the salt, which she adds to her eggs before digging in thankfully. Aomine grunts in response, turning back to take the mixing spoon from Kise and continuing to stir the fruits while Kise watches for a change. By the time Kagami comes into the kitchen, sunny and chipper and way too happy and personable for the time the clock on the wall shows, Momoi is on her second bowl of fruit salad and is chattering away about her date the next day. Aomine’s listening but barely responding, so Kise takes the initiative to be more vocal in returning her exclamations.

“This ain’t bad,” Kagami says around a mouthful of ketchup-covered eggs. “Usually anything the bastard touches tastes like hell.”

Aomine turns, brandishing his mixing spoon. “Fuck off.”

“It’s true and you know it! You can’t cook for shit. I bet if Kise hadn’t been the one cooking, the bacon would be burnt.” Aomine’s face screws up and looks like a shadow of the betrayal that had spilled across his features the night before, when everyone had sabotaged his Mario Kart win on Rainbow Road. Kise rests a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently to calm his frazzled nerves.

“Actually, Aomine did the bacon. How is it?” Kise asks this with deliberately timed precision, just after Kagami’s first bite of bacon and the resounding moan of pleasure that he emits because of it. He scowls, grumbling something about it being spectacular, and Aomine  _preens_. Kise shakes his head when he meets Momoi’s amused eyes as she sips on her morning tea, blowing to cool it before it could burn her lips.

“I’m guessing Kurokocchi won’t be up for a few more hours?” Kise poses aloud, focusing in on Kagami. He shakes his head, smiling shyly as he meets Kise’s eyes. 

“He doesn’t eat breakfast when he’s on break. When classes start up again, I make him breakfast and if he has time beforehand, he’ll eat it here. Otherwise I make him packed lunches with all the essential nutrients. And of course, I make some really fucking gourmet dinner meals so that he’s getting enough calories every day.”

“Nag.” Aomine taunts. Momoi rolls her eyes, saying, “You wish you had someone to cook for you like that.” 

Kise laughs when Aomine doesn’t deny it and instead shoves a piece of cantaloupe in his mouth. Kagami shrugs his shoulders, unaffected by the dig. He is so obviously smitten it’s almost hard to look at him sometimes, his cheeks flushed and his mouth curled in a shy smile. He pushes away from the table and cleans up his dishes, saying something about checking in on his boyfriend as he heads out of the kitchen. Momoi cracks her back and sighs.

“That’s our cue, boys. Time to bounce.” Kise doesn’t even question how she knows so, since she’s known Kagami and Kuroko far longer than he has. He simply follows suit, cleaning up after himself and moving around Aomine and Momoi as they clean up as well. Momoi scrawls a note of farewell and thanksgiving and pins it to the fridge with a magnet, kissing it with her chap stick-covered lips. She gestures for them to follow her, Aomine slipping away into the living room to pick up his satchel and sling it across his shoulders before falling in behind Kise. They head out from the apartment and pause on the sidewalk outside, preparing to part ways so that Aomine and Momoi can head to their respective places to get ready before they have to head to work. Kise has an important meeting with Kobori about the next few months of his life, a meeting he has been putting off and deliberately not thinking about, for obvious reasons. But time has still run away from him and now there is no pushing it back any longer; he has to face the facts, and Kobori has them in documented form to keep in his records.

“Well, I’ll see you guys later this week. I had fun!” He laughs at the expression on Aomine’s face, still sour from his betrayal. Momoi elbows him in the side, crossing her arms over her chest and smirking.

“We definitely have to do this again. Maybe next time I’ll get to bring  _my_ girlfriend.” And then before either Kise or Aomine could respond to that, she’s waving over her shoulder and already heading off down the street. Had she just implied that their time yesterday had been spent amongst her and couples? That Kagami and Kuroko make one, and Aomine and Kise make two? That she had been left out because she’s not a part of a couple? Kise flushes a deep red at the realization, hoping that it escapes Aomine, but one glance at him has Kise throwing that hope out the window. He isn’t angry or upset about it, though, not like Kise had expected. He seems curious, interested almost.

He turns back to Kise and studies him for a moment, tucking his tattooed hands into the pockets of his sweat pants. His head dips, just once, and his tongue comes out to wet his bottom lip before he speaks.

“You should come over some time. So you can, you know. Cook for me.” He says it so casually, like it isn’t a big deal at all. Meanwhile Kise’s heart is doing sprints in his chest and his mind is tripping over how  _big_  of a deal this actually is. He’s pretty certain Aomine has just been trying to avoid saying that he wants Kise to  _teach him_  how to cook, because that would imply that he needs someone else’s help with something—that he isn’t naturally stellar at it already like he is with most other things. But the way it comes out, the words he’d used, all Kise can think about is Momoi’s comment about an hour before.

 _You wish you had someone to cook for you like that_.

Had he actually meant to make that connection? Or is Kise just pathetically grasping at straws here? There are no answers to his questions on Aomine’s face, in his bright and expectant eyes or his upturned lips. Kise shakes the surprise of the situation off, physically, and smiles to show that he’s more than happy to agree to that.

He tries to harden his voice, remove any hint of a shake before speaking. “Of course. It’d be easier to get a hold of you, though, if I had your number.”

“Oh,” Aomine frowns, as if he hasn’t even realized that the two of them have never exchanged numbers before. As if that is something he’d thought they’d done ages ago. He pulls his cell phone out and hands it to Kise, waiting for him to tap in his name and number. When Kise hands it back to him, he snorts at the sunglasses emoji Kise has put next to his name.

“I’ll text you.” He says easily, once again like it’s nothing new—nothing special. Kise can practically feel his phone burning a hole in his sweatpants, waiting for the text that will submit Aomine’s number into his address book. He nods his head, says  _cool_  and starts walking backwards towards his apartment, not taking his eyes from a positively smirking Aomine.

“Bye,” he calls, giving a small wave that Aomine returns before shoving his hands in his pockets again and heading off in the other direction, his slouch pronounced beneath his formfitting gray t-shirt.

Kise pulls his phone out and holds it in his hands the entire walk back to his hotel, waiting for Aomine’s text message. He sets his phone down on the nightstand beside his bed and gets ready for his meeting with Kobori, pulling a beanie over his head and un-tucking his hair from behind his ears to let it frame his face. He’s messing with his hair when he finally hears the phone vibrate against the nightstand. Saying that he literally runs to the phone is not an overstatement. He moves past the lock screen and stares down at the new text message notification before sliding to open it.

_Don’t make me regret this._

Kise grins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't had this much fun writing something since I wrote the Kuroo Tetsurou and his Heelys fic (Hot Wheels) and that, my friends, was Wild B)


	6. Chapter 6

Two months left.

He only has two months left with his newfound friends, with  _Aomine_ , and his schedule is packed tight. He has several upcoming fan meet-and-greets scheduled, of which he is emphatically excited about, two of which will take place within Washington, and even more meetings that he absolutely cannot miss in neighboring states. There is talk within his management team that there’s going to be some sort of change in style, a “New Big Thing” that will get his face on a few more covers, just for publicity’s sake. Kise hasn’t been told the details, but something about Kobori’s tone over the phone when he delivered the news had made dread settle in the pit of Kise’s stomach. That had been a week ago and yet it’s still nesting there, a constant reminder that he’s going to have to do something he won’t like.

Winter is upon them in full skin-chilling, teeth-chattering force and as such Kise finds himself dressing in a dubious amount of layers on a daily basis, his feet encased in the fuzziest pair of socks he could find at the local store, and even still, he has them tucked into a pair of thick, brown leather boots. His navy coat is pretty massive by itself but he adds a deep gray scarf wrapped twice around his throat with a matching beanie to ensure his warmth. He’s had a lot of walking around the city to do, has been out in a mini blizzard and is still feeling the cold bite of it through all of his layers. His lips, he’s sure, appear bright red from the added paleness of his features. He can see little flakes of snow stuck in his eyelashes and yet he continues on, pacing down street after street to get to his various destinations. He’s already met the majority of his clients for the day and is now headed for his last: Kobori.

He’s to meet him at the Macrina Bakery & Café, just a corner away from where he is now. He glances up at the clouded gray sky, studying the way tufts of snow blow left and right in the wind and gradually fall to the ground, landing like cold kisses against his cheeks and forehead. The cold bite of the wind leeches through the many layers of his clothing and seeps deep into his skin, making his teeth chatter. When he turns the corner and approaches the shop, his hands come out of his warm pockets and meet the cold air with a clash, making him hiss under his breath.

He heads inside and sighs happily at the heated interior, grinning and thanking the hostess when she points out Kobori in the back of the room, tucked away in a corner booth. Kise knows the moment he sees the position that Kobori has chosen it for privacy value and heads to him immediately.

“Hey,” he greets, shrugging off his scarf when he’s finished scooting into the booth. Kobori smiles at him, shifting through several papers and folders and envelopes that he’s laid out across the table. He glances down at them curiously, waiting for Kobori to finish whatever he's doing as he gives his order to the waitress. He can’t  _not_  go to a bakery in the same town and order what he usually gets from Kagami just to see if it measures up.

“Alright,” Kobori breathes, smiling up at him. He glances over his features briefly, his eyes turning sharp. “You look tired, Kise.”

“I’m fine! Promise.” He  _is_  a little tired, bordering on exhausted, but that is his usual setting. The fact that it’s hitting him a little harder, a little quicker, and a little more noticeably than it has in the past is only a reminder that he’s getting older. He’s okay with that, actually. He doesn’t mind the thought of aging or even what it will do to his looks—he’s pretty secure in the knowledge that he’s still going to be attractive, but just in a different weight class, so to speak. Even in his world of makeup and beauty and products to make sure everyone always looks younger, younger, younger, he has somehow remained unscathed from the dangerous mindsets that his industry often promotes and maintains. Wrinkles, he thinks, are not the enemy. It’s all in how the mind handles the information of change, and so far his is doing quite well.

Exhaustion, however, is a little more difficult to manage. He has lived with it his entire life but getting older does have a few adverse effects, and hell, he isn’t even that old! That’s just something he’s going to have to adapt to. But he isn’t afraid, isn’t apprehensive about it. If anything, he’ll greet it like just another challenge. Even in this most serious and inevitable a situation, he feels an overwhelming love for a good challenge.

Besides, when it comes to adapting, Kise is the best.

His tone turns placating when he sees that Kobori isn’t picking up what he’s putting down. “Kobori, you know I’m always expending so much energy. It’s just that it’s starting to actually show, now.”

Kobori holds no punches; says “Yeah, in the form of bags under your eyes.”

“They’re Prada, thanks for noticing.” Kise says sarcastically, rolling his eyes. Kobori is smirking, shaking his head as he continues to watch Kise’s expression. The wind howls outside their window, the blizzard slowly intensifying. Kise turns to watch the snow fall for a few seconds, allows it to remind him of Japan and the friends he still has there. Kobori leans back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest comfortably. Finally, he sighs.

“I’m worried about you. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate right now, and if it’s too much you can tell me. Honestly, I will not mind. There are a few jobs we can set on the backburners, let them wait for a while before we get to them. Your health is the most important factor here, okay?”

“Understood.” He responds, warming under his concern. Kobori is only a few years older than he is, but he juggles arguably even more responsibilities than Kise and he never complains. He is a pillar of determination and oftentimes Kise finds himself feeling rejuvenated around him, like his mere presence gives him his second wind. He’s a strong person, stronger than Kise thinks he could ever be. He’s never seen the look Kobori is giving him now, but he’s also never offered to drop any of his duties before.

“But I am fine. I can do this. I’ll return these bags, I didn’t even really like them that much anyways.” Kise smiles, his tone complacent.

“Always a joke with you, isn’t it?” his tone is reprimanding, but his eyes are amused. Kise rubs the back of his neck good-naturedly, laughing as he nods his head. The waitress returns with his muffin and his hot chocolate, accepting his thank you and asking for an autograph in return. He smiles at her, brightening. After she’s left, thanking him profusely and complimenting him, to which he thanks her back, he turns to see Kobori resting his chin on his hand, smiling thoughtfully at him. Before he can ask what  _that_  look means, he’s moving on to business.

“So,” he begins, shuffling some papers around and trying to make himself look busy. He explains Kise’s upcoming week and all of his responsibilities and duties, detailing every report and making sure that he knows where he’s supposed to be, when he’s expected, and who exactly he’s going to be meeting. Even though Kobori goes with him to almost every meeting and does a large part of the talking, it is Kise the clients are interested in, and as such, knowing about them on an almost personal level before meeting them is always received better than someone who doesn’t have a clue. Several of the people in his industry have pride issues and are more concerned with being known and being important before meeting new prospective clients.

Kise and Kobori had learned that a long time ago and had taken control of the situation, researching each new client and making sure that both of them knew just about everything they could about anyone they met for business. Kobori explains everything with precise detail, never missing a thing, and shows him pictures and documents whenever he has questions or wants to get a better grasp on any profile. By the time he finishes detailing his week, Kobori begins to shuffle the papers around again, almost nervously.

“Was that it then?” Kise asks, frowning at his hands as they continue to push papers haphazardly into their files before slipping them into his suitcase. Kise finds himself feeling worried about him, since Kobori is almost always completely in control of himself. He’s naturally straightforward and unafraid to lay out the guidelines for any job, regardless of how obscene or strange the parameters might be. So whatever it is that he is preparing to divulge to Kise must be something he  _knows_  is not going to be received well. Kise’s about to reach out and steady his hand when, almost all at once, he settles, crossing his hands together on the table in front of him and looking Kise right in the eyes. He knows instantly that this is going to be the grand reveal of the information that had filled him with dread for the past week, at long last.

“There’s one last thing and you’re not going to like it.” He opens, ever forthright. He shifts his neck just slightly, trying to ease some tension.

“Do you remember me telling you about something our team was planning for you?” he asks, one eyebrow poised slightly higher than the other in a look of hesitant curiosity.

“Some sort of change.” Kise repeats blandly, unsure of what Kobori is mentioning specifically.

Kobori nods. “Yes. A  _big_  change.”

“Okay,” Kise drags the word out, frowning at him. The information is clearly weighing on him, so when he finally just lets it all out his body droops under it, but his face clears and becomes far less complex and far more determined. That’s never a good sign for Kise and his ability to reject things.

“You’re going to have to stage a short love affair.  _Don’t_  interrupt me now that I’m finally getting this out. I know that you’ve always rejected anything of the sort and I know your reasons, it’s cheap, it’s messy, it’s cliché, I get it. But you’ve been off the map for far too long and you’ve done just about everything else we can think of to put yourself back in the spotlight already. That Armani shoot was a start, a blip on the radar, but you’ve been too far away from America for too long for them to remember you like Japan does, or even Germany. You’re still a new face here, even if you do get recognized by waitresses and people buying baked goods. If you want to be the international star we all know you can be, this is something you have to do. It’s shitty and I hate it too, but the management team all agrees. You have had almost no publicity with a significant other, not even brief stints. In this business, that makes you stand out, but not in the way we want.”

The moment Kobori finishes his spiel, Kise is on him, quick and heated like a lightning strike. “I can’t believe this. You know, some people don’t want or  _need_  another person. And even when they do, some people don’t want to touch them or be romantic with them! They exist and they’re important!” Kise hisses, his cheeks reddening with fury. He honestly,  _honestly_ , had not been expecting this. There’s no way that he could’ve prepared himself for this kind of news. He’d been so certain that Kobori and his team would stand behind him on this, would never force him to use someone else and be used in return just for money and a more widespread namesake. It’s something he has never budged on, not ever, and yet now, with the way that Kobori has delivered the information to him, it sounds final. It sounds like he has no choice, not even in this.

Kobori looks on in sympathy, obviously against it as he’d said, but resigned to the necessity of it. He can tell that he wants to reach over and touch his arm, comfort him in some way, but he knows that Kobori knows that would be the last thing he wants right now.

“I know that they do and I know that they’re important. But you are not asexual or aromantic, Kise. You’re bisexual. We’ve talked about this for years, remember? I knew you when you were young and figuring yourself out. I remember your exploration and your curiosity.”

“I know,” Kise snaps, watching Kobori flinch and instantly regretting his tone. “I know.” He repeats, softer, more gently this time.

“I do identify as bisexual and that does mean that it would make sense for the media to see me with either a man or a woman, but regardless, even if they think that my sexuality is their business, what I do with it is not.”

“I wish it were so, Kise. I truly do.” Kobori does reach out, then, his hand settling over Kise’s on the table, as the other fists in his lap out of sight. “You do understand that even in this, there are still choices. You always have the power to choose for yourself. Don’t ever forget that. Your fans, your team, even me—none of us have authority over your choices. If you truly, one hundred percent don’t want to do this, you do not have to. But I have to tell you the truth; if that’s the case then your popularity will never be what you dreamed it to be. You’ll still be famous and well-loved, quite like you are now. But people who have relationship publicity are always,  _always_  better known.”

“It’s so cheap.” He says, feeling heated and under pressure. “I don’t want to cheapen myself just to get more money or more fame.”

“I know,” Kobori whispers, tone sympathetic and slightly pained. “I know this doesn’t sound like much, but think of this: it’s a one-time thing. And it doesn’t have to be a long stunt, either.”

“That’s completely besides the point,” Kise snaps, bringing a shaky hand up to push at his bangs. Then, in a voice pitched so low Kobori has to lean forward to hear it, Kise says, “I think I’m better than this.”

The expression that cracks open over Kobori’s face is pained and frustrated and everything that’s powerful enough to bring Kise back to some level of clarity—enough that he can focus less on his feelings and more on what is logical for his career. Regardless of how content he sometimes feels in his place in the world—as a relatively famous model and a blooming actor—he still feels like he can become more, like he has a duty to himself and his fans to get to a place in life where he can help others with his privileged lifestyle.

It’s difficult for him to put it all into words, to adequately explain to Kobori that this is so much more than just him doing a cheap stunt for shitty reasons, but that it’s something that will change a part of him permanently and in a way that he does not like. How can he explain that the burden comes straight from his soul, from the twined cords that come together and make him who he is?

He doesn’t want to cheapen himself. Faking a relationship for publicity’s sake feels exactly like something that will damage his character and make him dislike that part of himself permanently.

But then he thinks of his fans, the ones who benefit from his monthly donations, from his meet-and-greets, for those that his mere presence has helped them to stay alive in a world full of oppression and hatred and discrimination and he thinks,  _how can I betray them for the sake of my pride?_  If he does this thing, this fake relationship, will it increase his ability to further help the people that look up to him as someone who has always put his fans before his own well-being? Even if this cheap thing, this publicity stunt, takes a part of him away and returns it charred and slick with sludge-like shame, wouldn’t it be worth it if it meant that he could further aid his fans?

Is he thinking himself in circles again? It’s sudden, the way confusion spears through his thoughts and turns everything upside down, making the proposition seem like something positive when his heart is telling him it’s terrible and dirty, grimy hands dripping black noxious liquid reaching for the deepest parts of himself he holds onto the hardest, the parts no one else knows about and only he values.

His spirit. His pride.

If he falters here, in the face of something that only he and a few others will find cheap, and subsequently hinders his ability to create non-profit organizations for those in need, charities that sustain young lives, and free worldwide events where fans can come and interact with him without having to pay a thing, then what kind of idol is he truly?

Kise sits there slowly shaking his head for what feels like an eternity, his mind spinning, gaze once again turned to the world outside of the window. He watches the snow flicker by, the wind taking each and every flake on a joyride in every which direction. The sun is setting, casting the sky in a dull, deep gray of angry clouds and snowfall, and he feels his heart follow suit.

He doesn’t know what to do. He knows what his heart is telling him and what his mind is telling him but the disparity between what is better for him as a person with opinions and boundaries is not what would be better for his business as an icon and an idol of the fashion industry, and most importantly above all else, his fans. He had known coming into the industry that his private life would no longer be his own, of course he had known, but as someone who loves as deeply and intensely as he does, he’d also known that he wants those bonds to be truly his. He doesn’t want to share them with the world—he can barely share personal facets of information about his past with the world! How is he supposed to look at magazines and celebrity shows and see an intimate bond transposed to the entire world and still view it as intimate?

There is a part of him that knows that he is being ridiculous, but another part still wonders at the value American society puts on intimate, romantic relationships. How can they publicize so much and expect it to still just be between the two people in question? He’s seen shows where a single person dates more than twenty to try to find the love of their life. He’s seen others where they go through the motions of their wedding, buying their dresses and jewelry, all on national television. How do they retain the feeling of intimacy when their country or the entire world knows their secrets like that?

Maybe Kise is selfish. Maybe he is possessive. Maybe because he has lived such a public life since he was just a young boy, he finally just wants something for himself, something that can’t be shared with cameras.

Flashes of blue eyes appear in his mind and he realizes that this is not even just about him anymore, but Aomine too. He’s kissed Aomine, has shared intimate touches with him, has baked sleepily with him in the early morning in pajamas. There is something growing there, something special and important. If he has to stage a love affair for the world to see, it will not be with Aomine. He does not want anything to  _end_ , when it comes to Aomine. He’s barely even managed a beginning.

But if it isn’t with Aomine, then he’ll have to wine and dine some random person out there, to kiss them and share parts of himself that they haven’t earned and won’t respect. And he will do the same to them—take from them what he hasn’t earned, what he doesn’t even  _want_. And he can already feel the acceptance of it in his stomach, can already feel the impending consent to this terrible ploy. Because this is more than just his intimacy issues, this is his dream, and it’s the keystone that leads to his ability to move through the world and offer positive change, altruistic aid.

Even with the heavy weight of his fans upon his decision, there is still the much smaller but still present existence of his own desire. He is human, after all.

Ever since he’d gotten into the business, he’d wanted to be famous all over the world. A child’s dream, to be fair, but one he has maintained and fostered throughout the years and has kept alive even through an industry of cynics and killjoys. Childish, maybe, but it is still his dream and he still holds it tight. Of course, when he’d been a child the dream had been for fame and fortune just for the fun of it. Now, since he has been in the industry for more than a decade and has seen what his fame and his fortune can do to help those in need, he knows it’s so much more than just owning his place in the world.

It’s what he can do with it to help others.

“Okay,” he whispers, finally looking back up at Kobori, his eyes tight. He clenches his jaw once, twice, then releases his hand to cross his arms over his chest.

Kobori’s shoulders fall, heavy and rigid, like stones. “I’m sorry, Kise.”

Kise’s voice is tight, the pressure building behind his eyes tasting like saltwater on the back of his tongue. “I have conditions and they are unbreakable.”

“Absolutely,” Kobori whispers, immediately pulling out his laptop and opening a file to record Kise’s conditions. Kise’s brain works quickly now that he’s come to a decision and he’s sticking with it. He files through his conditions one last time in his head, makes sure to cover every one of his bases, and tries not to snap when he lists them out. After all, this isn’t entirely Kobori’s fault. Kise, as had been promised, has an equal share in this ploy.

“I’m going to publically date a man. We’re going to charm the public and open their eyes to the fact that bisexuality is a thing that exists, that I have had girlfriends and I have had boyfriends, and this is going to be a relationship that the media cannot mess up, no matter how hard they try. I’ll make sure of that myself. I want this stunt to raise awareness and I want it to be helpful for young people who don’t see enough of it in their lives or in their media. And when we finally do end our faux-relationship, it’s going to be mutual.”

“Okay,” Kobori nods, his fingers flying over the keys to capture Kise’s words verbatim. When he finishes, he looks over the screen at Kise and asks, “Is there anything else?”

Kise’s eyes are resolute. “I want an extension on my time here in Seattle.”

Kobori eyes him warily, taking a long moment to think. His half-eaten muffin sits untouched off to the side, his hot chocolate already cold. He can’t bring himself to eat or drink anything at the moment, can’t believe that he’d even really taste anything, and besides, Kagami’s are better.

“How long of an extension are we talking, Kise? Even a month would push some incredibly important duties back and we may even lose them, especially since they’re in New York. I think that’s all I can offer you.”

“A month.” Kise says, rolling the word around in his mouth, tasting the finality of it. “I will agree to a month if I can end the faux-relationship in a month.”

Kobori records this, nodding once in response to Kise’s last demand.

“Do I get to pick the guy?” he asks, indifferent to the topic. Kobori looks at him through his lashes, shakes his head.

“We’ve already picked him out. I had a feeling that if you did agree to this, you’d want to go public with a man. Quell the rumors that you’re heterosexual.” Kise nods thoughtfully, unsurprised that Kobori understands his thought processes so well.

“Who is he?” he asks, utterly apathetic.

“You know him, actually. Does the name James Howard ring a bell?” Recognition flashes across Kise’s face instantly, the memory of a male model he’d recently done a shoot with flashing up in his mind’s eye. Kise remembers him easily enough, remembers that he’s five years younger than Kise’s twenty-five, that he had been amiable and flirtatious as hell. He has skin darker than Aomine’s and blue eyes so light they’re almost colorless. He’s beautiful and he’d been kind and to be honest, Kise recognizes that he is an incredibly lucky pick, though he is a little nervous about their chemistry.

There is no faking chemistry. Kise and James had felt it the moment they’d walked onto the same set together, the moment their hands had touched and James had said,  _It’s an honor_. Kise knows it will be easy with James, knows that they will actually genuinely enjoy themselves, even if it is all a farce. He hopes to hell that James is coming into this knowing what to expect, though—that Kise isn’t in it for the long haul, that it’s a publicity stunt that he is actually inherently  _against_. But James will be getting possibly even more popularity from this ordeal than Kise, considering he’s a new model on the rise, and having an experienced, already-famous model on  _his_  arm will intrigue.

“Yeah,” Kise acknowledges, nodding. “A good guy. A good…choice.”

Kobori winces, his face puckering slightly.

“I do want to let you know that he’s aware of…everything. He knows how you feel about this. He isn’t going into this expecting anything more. I’m not gonna lie to you though, the kid is interested. Like,  _interested_. So be careful. I mean it Kise, for your well-being too.”

“Geez,” Kise sighs, scratching the side of his neck. “This is getting more and more complicated by the minute. I  _am_  glad that I don’t have to break it to him that this is temporary, but if he does actually like me I’m going to have to be extra careful.”

He frowns, asking, “When are we getting together?”

Kobori relaxes at the question; glad to finally get out of the murky waters of explanations and uncertainty and into the nitty-gritty he’s planned for. He’s excellent at planning and organizing and being overly prepared for just about anything, a true testament to his Type A nature.

“That cocktail party I mentioned this weekend?” Kobori’s face is apologetic even as he smiles warily, watching Kise’s eyes fall to half-mast and his lips purse.

“You really  _did_  plan this.” He replies, shaking his head but laughing lightly to make sure Kobori knew he wasn’t upset, not like earlier. “So he’s going to be there and then what?”

“The rest is totally up to your discretion. You guys decide where you want to go, where you want to be seen, where you want to stage certain milestones of your relationship…”

“You’ve already planned how often we’re going to hang out, haven’t you.”

“Yeah.” Again with that apologetic yet resigned expression on his face. Kise feels tension pooling in the muscles of his neck. “We have a tentative schedule planned so that you’re seen together enough for it not to be mistaken that you’re together romantically.”

“Alright.” Kise sighs, finally moving to take a sip from his hot chocolate, which is now just chocolate milk. Taking a deep breath once more and trying to settle the tension lacing his body, he sets his cup down and pulls his phone out, wanting to find some semblance of normalcy in the midst of this sudden political shit-storm.

20:13  
To: Kagamicchi   
From: Kise B)  
Subject: literally wth  
I’m at Macrina Bakery & Café and their muffins are a travesty (╥﹏╥ )

Setting the phone aside, Kise gathers up his scarf and wraps it back around his neck and shoulders. He shuffles out of the booth, grabbing his bag and slinging it over his shoulder before offering to help Kobori clean up his paperwork. He rejects the offer with a small smile, telling him to enjoy the rest of the day without worrying about anything, which is easier said than done but he appreciates the sentiment all the same.

“Be careful, Kise. Call a cab so you don’t get sick. It’s getting dangerous out there.” Kobori worries, frowning.

“Will do!” Kise replies with noticeably less cheer than he usually expresses, especially to Kobori. Yet even still, it’s more than he’s expecting from himself; he chalks it up to the thought of pushing everything he’s learned about this faux-relationship to the back of his mind until he’s forced to deal with it directly. He reaches over and hugs Kobori goodbye, repeating Kobori’s sentiments by telling him to be careful out there too. He feels his phone vibrate in his pocket but doesn’t dig it out until he’s at the entrance to the bakery, pausing before the doors to check the text message.

20:16  
To: Kise  
From: Kagamicchi  
Subject: duh  
Get here. Just made fresh muffins, butterscotch glaxr. Calling your name

20:17  
To: Kise  
From: Kagamicchi  
Subject: fuggin typo  
Glaze* -_-

20:17  
To: Kagamicchi  
From: Kise B)  
Subject: yay!  
o(≧∇≦o) be there in ten!!!

Smiling to himself and feeling incredibly included and loved, Kise steps through the doors into the freezing wind that instantly tries to push him back inside. He doesn’t care how cold it is, how the wind goes straight through his layers and grips his skin like pincers on every follicle. The knowledge that he has a place here, in Seattle, in The Bakery, in The Zone, makes him feel warmed up from his heart out to his fingertips. Pushing the negative thoughts and the viscous feeling of dread in his stomach out of his area of focus, he reaches up to secure his beanie on his head, bringing his scarf up higher to shield his lips and nose from the chill, and heads out to the street to hail a cab and head for The Bakery, where Kagami and Kuroko have a muffin waiting with his name on it.

 

✧

   
  
The weekend comes upon him quicker than he’s prepared for, even though he has gone against his usual ignore-it-until-it’s-right-in-your-face philosophy. He’s been actively thinking about and planning his initial meeting and continued relationship with James. He wants to do it right, wants to be respectful of James’s feelings as well as his own. Because he is actually doing this thing, he is going to do it as carefully as possible.

The storm from three days prior is still going strong, a heavy fall of snow and loud, thrashing wind to accompany it. Luckily, the cocktail party is being held inside their host’s incredibly elegant mansion and they have more than prepared for the storm. There are helping hands almost everywhere you look, tucked into the edges of the room so as to not be a part of the party though even they are dressed elegantly. They welcome guests and take their coats and scarves graciously, giving back numbered slips for pick-up.

Kise had really put a lot of thought into his outfit for the night, considering that firstly he’s going to be greeting a lot of familiar, important people who deal heavily in the business. Regardless of how well he knows them and how close they are, he has an image to uphold to them and others all the same. And secondly, tonight is the night that he’s going to be meeting up with his faux-beau, James Howard. With all of this in mind, he’s slipped into a new pair of deep blue jeans that make his ass look incredible and a pair of elegant leather Oxfords. He has on a thinly striped pale blue and white button-up with a black tie, a beige cashmere vest with the topmost button left undone, and a gray and brown tweed coat overtop. His hair has been uncontrollable in the wind, so he’d slipped a beige beanie atop his head and only allowed the hairs framing his face to peek out from the material.

He has already been around the room once, getting all of his major introductions out of the way and even meeting a few new faces already. He hasn’t spotted James yet, but he has plenty of time. The night is still young and the dancing hasn’t even begun yet, so for now he’s busy chatting with a group of photographers, designers, editors, and one up-and-comer that is sticking to him like glue. Her name is Kate and she has carefully followed him from group to group, standing quietly to observe how he interacts like an old hand with all of the important people in the room. She introduces herself to a couple of people, clearly nervous but confident enough to put her foot in the door. Kise doesn’t pay her much mind as he listens to stories and retellings and even a few future proposition ideas. He likes to hear about the latter especially, because depending on who’s speaking it could be a prediction for the way that fashion is going to shift and he always likes to be prepared.

Eventually Kate finds interest in a famous female supermodel that has just walked in the door and leaves his side, and he doesn’t see her again for the rest of the night. His stomach starts to growl a couple of hours in and he finds himself at the buffet of snacks at the end of the room, which is almost untouched, unsurprisingly. People are either too concerned with their looks in their elegant party outfits or they are not fond of the foods on display (Kise doubts that, considering everything looks delicious), or they simply just aren’t hungry. Either way, he’s starving. He gets himself a cup of fruit salad and eats a few chocolates just to quench his sudden sweet tooth, finishing up the fruit with his second glass of champagne, which he’s been nursing for the latter end of the night.

Studying the array of desserts at the end of the buffet table, Kise realizes he has literally no idea what most of them even are. One moment he’s studying them up close and personal, going so far as to bend over the table and stick his face right up next to one, and the next he is taking pictures of them and sending them to Kagami and Aomine. Kagami, for obvious rival-baker reasons, and Aomine because it makes Kise laugh more than he probably should thinking about Aomine getting delicious cutesy desserts texted to him throughout the night and being gruffly irritated about it. Kise is in the process of taking a picture of something that appears to involve a combination of Jell-o, pudding, and chocolate frosting—and is somehow crafted to look like a swan so small it fits in the palm of Kise’s hand—and eating it’s twin, when a gruff laugh comes from over his shoulder. He turns, mouth full of strange-concoction swan dessert with his phone aimed at another one sitting pretty in his palm to see James Howard looking fondly at him.

God, but he is pretty. His dark hair is cropped close to his skull and he has scruff and it’s as sexy as anything Kise has ever seen. He wonders instantly if this is the level of attractiveness Aomine would exude if he actually let his stubble grow out. He shakes the thought away immediately, not wanting to think about Aomine at this exact moment. Instead, he smiles around his deliciously chocolate-y swan and tries not to stare at the spattering of freckles across James’s dark skin, from cheek to check, so adorably perfect. His eyes, upon closer inspection, aren’t blue at all but a strangely mysterious yellow-green that has Kise leaning in for closer inspection. He doesn’t get up in James’s personal space, though. He has enough tact to make sure of that, even if he is just starting to feel the effects of his second glass of champagne.

“By any chance, do you remember me?” James Howard asks, voice light and maybe just this side of timid. Kise makes sure to swallow the rest of his dessert, not wanting his second impression with James involving him spitting chocolate and Jell-o on the guy.

“Yes!” he chirps, laughing airily. “It’s good to see you again.” Even with all his inner turmoil over what they are planning to do—what they are  _going_  to do—Kise’s statement isn’t a lie. He is happy to see James, happy enough that he forgets all about finishing the last text he’d been preparing to send to Aomine, the one of the swan and several following question marks, and instead just tucks his phone into his pocket. He reaches out to shake James’s hand, offering neutral ground. He watches James’s eyes; such magnificent colors, gleaming with something like amusement. He returns the handshake, squeezes once and brings his hand back to tuck into his pocket.

Kise almost says  _fancy meeting you here_  but he’s a much better actor than that level of blatancy. Instead, he says, “Great party, huh?”

“It is,” James agrees, glancing around the room with wide eyes. “I’m not used to this level of grandeur, to be honest. Never been to a party quite like this one before.”

And just like that the underlying message of why James is acting as a part of this entire scheme at all is laid out in the open between them, delivered skillfully and without any level of obviousness from the inexperienced up-and-comer. Kise looks at him appraisingly, surprised and delighted that James can be so subversive with his conversation. Kise nods his head knowingly, taking from where James has left off.

“That’s to be expected, for sure. Chat up some old hands and I’m sure you’ll be invited to an endless number of parties like this one. It’s all in the job description.”

“Sounds like a lot of pressure. And a lot of incredible buffet tables.” James glances over the length of the table with amusement smeared across his features, his lips pulling up into a small smile. Kise grins in response, sharing the joke with him.

“The buffet tables are definitely one of the most incredible benefits from the job, that’s no lie. I mean look at these  _desserts_.”

And once again Kise remembers the finely crafted desserts, the Jell-o, the swans. He immediately kneels, uncaring if it looks unprofessional. He’s known as the international sunshine, someone who does things differently than the norm, who will walk into a standstill photoshoot and end up contorting his body in an endless amount of poses just to liven up the shot. Many photographers have been enchanted with his apparent individuality, while others still have been irritated that he doesn't obey their control. Just as it is with anyone in the world, some people enjoy him and others do not, though he is a big enough name by now that even those who make it clear that he is not their preferred cup of tea book him whenever they can, simply because his name and face alone will spike their sales. At parties, he’s always been the center of attention, the one who christens the dance floor and shrugs out of his coat so that he has his full range of movement. He’s both the cherished, straight A student and the class clown, and the people love him for it.

James is laughing now, throaty and deep as he bends down next to Kise, their knees touching only briefly. Kise ignores it.

“ _Look_  at these swan things. First off, how? Secondly, why? Why chocolate Jell-o swans. I just don’t know.” Kise’s eyes are wide, never leaving the swans directly in front of him.

“Probably so that they could see the world-famous Kise Ryouta examining them with this level of interest and captivation. I’m sure someone’s already snapped a picture and these swan things will be the next big thing in baking.”

Kise laughs, picturing Kagami’s face if that were to actually happen. “Oh man, my friend would  _love_  that. I’m gonna have to make up a story about that happening just to see his reaction.”

“Is this friend a baker?” James asks, his voice edging around careful. The care in his tone has Kise pausing, glancing over to those green eyes to see his expression. It’s unreadable for a moment, but then James smiles at him almost self-consciously, his brows lifting together. Kise is good at reading people, at seeing the details of their expressions and knowing what they are thinking. James looks like he’s a little…jealous? Squinting slightly, Kise turns back to the swans and examines that piece of information briefly, remembering what Kobori had said, before responding.

“Yup! He co-owns the best bakery in Seattle with his boyfriend, but I’ve never seen swan things in there. Maybe he’s not on the up-and-up for new and creative and really strange desserts.” Kise smirks, turning to see James’s smile grow. He’s been subtle enough to mention Kuroko’s place in Kagami’s life without outright stating that he’s realized James is feeling insecure about a possible real-boyfriend in Kise’s life. Kise thinks of Aomine’s arms caged around his head on the floor of Kagami’s apartment, of their foreheads resting together and the comfortable weight of Aomine’s body on top of his. If James only knew how complicated the situation really is, at least on Kise’s end of things.

“They own the bakery together? That honestly sounds so legit. Like can you imagine getting up in the morning to head into work just to bake delicious things? I would never last. I’d eat absolutely everything I made. Not that I can make anything in the first place, but still.”

“Oh, I totally get you. They live a pretty awesome life together owning that bakery, I have to admit. Sometimes I wonder if I hadn’t chased after this dream, what would I have done? I can’t really think of anything.” He shrugs sheepishly, still kneeling beside the dessert swans but tilting his body openly towards James now that they are in full conversation. He takes notice of James’s outfit for the first time all night, studying a uniquely patterned sweater with a black jacket unzipped over it and a pair of dark wash jeans and heavy boots. It’s incredibly simple and yet somehow, somehow it looks elegant and fitting for a party such as this. Kise knows that sort of power, the one that turns ordinary clothes from ordinary to attractive just by being on a person’s body—Aomine is like that. Of course, he never wears clothing that really changes too much from a shirt or a muscle tank and a pair of tight jeans and loafers, so Kise hasn’t been able to test his theory, but there’s just a way that people like them move, a way that their bodies fit under any kind of cloth that transforms them.

“You really can’t think of anything you’d want to do if not modeling?” James asks, voice still light but his eyes are sincerely curious. Kise fidgets with the hair framing the left side of his face and shakes his head as he prepares a lie to tell. That kind of information, no matter how small it might seem to anyone else, is personal to Kise. Something that would tell a lot about what he truly wants to do with his life, what he truly desires. It is not territory that a faux-relationship can touch.

“I can’t!” he exclaims, laughing and rubbing the back of his beanie self-consciously. “I think modeling is just it for me.”

James watches him carefully, not feeling rushed to respond but comfortable observing Kise’s expression and the gleam of his eyes. After a moment, he nods, pushing against his thighs to lift himself to a standing position again. Kise follows suit, still a little distracted with the dessert swans.

“I can see that. You’re incredible at what you do, so it makes sense. And that’s not flattery.” James’s smile is a little more serene, more intense this time. Just a gentle curve at one corner of his lips, but telling of so much.

“I always thought, you know, if this didn’t work out for me I’d want to be a photographer. I like to see how the angles and the light hit certain objects and change them. I don’t—I don’t know how to explain it, it sounds stupid.” He laughs, glancing away to smile politely at someone passing by. Kise shakes his head, frowning.

“It’s not stupid. I know what you mean, how the angles and the lighting are so important to each shoot, regardless of the model. We’re just other pieces in the puzzle, there to manipulate and be manipulated. It’s up to the photographer to get everything how he or she wants it, to find the perfect medium and the right angles to fit what they want to see. There’s a lot of control there that they want but can’t have. It’s a complicated game.” James turns back to him and grins, this time showing his teeth. His canines are sharper than Kise’s, the highlight of his toothy smile.

“Any game involving manipulation is complicated.” 

There is no way that Kise can miss the double meaning of that remark, so he retains it with a grin, reaching out to rest a hand on the side of James’s arm and turning him towards a glass-paneled door that leads out to a covered veranda. They’ve gotten the preliminary introductions and banter out of the way and now they need to be seen in a slightly more intimate light—as if just by talking with one another they’ve become so interested that they can’t be separated, that they had to be  _alone_  together, where there isn’t music pounding in their ears and chatter all around them. Somewhere they can have an important conversation.

Kise makes a show of keeping his hand on James’s arm as he leads him through the doors to the veranda, turning over his shoulder as if to cast a secretive glance across the room, as if he’s making sure no one has seen them. He makes eye contact with someone as gossipy as he is important; smiling shyly and hunching his shoulders slightly as he lifts a finger to his lips as if to say,  _please keep it a secret_! As he shuts the door behind them, he watches the designer turn to the woman beside him, thinking Kise is out of sight as he cups his hand to her ear and lights the fuse that James and Kise have laid down behind them.

 

✧

 

Just as Kise had known and Kobori had planned, the news of one Kise Ryouta, international superstar and renowned supermodel, getting cozy with one of the most promising up and coming models of the industry hits the public within hours after the party. Kise is willing to argue that it had begun during the party, he  _had_  been there when James and he came back inside walking close together to work up some of the heat they’d lost being out in the cold, and several sets of eyeshad turned to glance interestedly up at them. At first it had been gossip for industry-only workers, but after a few days of sneaky dates and Kise showing up at a few of James’s photoshoots, it quickly became a matter that several magazines became interested in, to the extent that Kise is sure there’s a cover in the process of being made right now, with him and James holding hands outside of a bistro and laughing about the word porridge with big, bold words spelling out  _Kise Ryouta: GAY?_

Next would come the talk shows where he’ll have to patiently explain that he is bisexual. Those will be the times where he can educate his fans and anyone willing to watch a little bit on bisexuality and how important it is to understand that it’s real, that kids are struggling to understand themselves because they identify with it but are repeatedly told that it doesn’t exist. And after all of the questions and explanations, there will be the big reveal—that he’s dating James Howard.

He isn’t sure how much time he has left until those things are going to happen, it’s already been a little under a week and he’s honestly been enjoying his time with James. The younger man is hilarious, charming, and he knows how to have a good time regardless of the circumstances, much like Kise. They’d found that out the hard way when they’d gotten stuck in an elevator for four hours while they were shopping and had had to resort to their own devices to be entertained. There isn’t much to dislike about James, if Kise is being completely honest. He’s a good person, kind and compassionate and truly interested in interacting with other people. He loves his job and he loves his family and he reacts well to Kise, even when he withholds certain bits of information and James knows it. Sometimes James needs a tic tac or a piece of gum, sometimes he shows up to early morning dates grumpy and snappy and has to be warmed up to his normally flirtatious self, and sometimes he chews with his mouth open. But other than those few things, which aren’t really deal-breakers, Kise can’t come up with anything bad about the guy.

Not necessarily tied to James as a person but in direct response to his presence in Kise’s life, however, is the terrible downside of having less time to see his friends, Momoi and Aomine especially.

_Aomine_.

He hasn’t seen hide nor hair of Aomine in the week since he’s started his faux relationship with James, even when he tries to drop in to The Zone as often as he can, and that makes him nervous. He’s managed to catch Momoi a few times and updated her with any new information, since he’d told her everything the same night that he’d been told everything. She really,  _really_  doesn’t like it but somehow she understands how it’s necessary, has even given him some very Kobori-esque advice about it. She’s still cross about how Aomine is going to react to the news, though, but that doesn’t even begin to touch how Kise feels about it. He wants to explain it all to Aomine before the magazines and shows get a hold of the rumors, but that requires actually seeing the man.

Kise is a free bird today and doesn’t have anything planned with James for once, so he’s where everyone would expect him to be: The Zone. He’s already dropped by The Bakery and given Kagami and Kuroko the long-story-short version of what is going down, ignoring the glares they both cast at him and proceeds to ask for his usual. Kagami had made him pay for it. That was how Kise knew he was in trouble with them and had scampered off like a kicked puppy over to The Zone, shoving his muffin in his mouth before he entered the shop. Midorima glared at him, which wasn’t anything new, but this time it’s like he is a flesh-eating bacterium, which is definitely a higher level of repulsed than usual, even from Midorima. Wakamatsu isn’t speaking to him at all, only snarling whenever they cross paths. Every time Kise whines that  _it has to be done_  and  _it’s not real_  Momoi just huffs and shrugs her tattooed shoulders, turning back to the drawing board.

“Okay, I am the scum of the Earth. I admit it. Can we all quit giving me the guilt trip now?” he whines, shimmying in his seat and biting his bottom lip, trying to pinpoint his puppy-eyes on anyone in the room, but they know better than to meet his eyes when he whines. His puppy-eyes are next level powerful.

“No.” Imayoshi chirps form the other end of the room, currently tattooing some kanji on an older man’s back. Wakamatsu is grumbling something that sounds curiously like  _what a_   _fucking douche_  into the trashcan he’s currently emptying, which again isn’t anything new, but the significance is in his tone. He sounds sad.

It had become clear to Kise weeks ago that literally everyone in the shop knows that he’s in love with Aomine except for Aomine himself. The idiot. And everyone also knows that Aomine has been acting differently since Kise had showed up with his chipper grin and sunny disposition. Differently in a good way. A really,  _really_  good way.

“You all know I’m…” he cuts himself off, glancing at the several customers being tattooed, pierced, and those sitting in the waiting area. He can’t let his faux-relationship fail this soon because he’s openly whining in his favorite tattoo shop. “ _Interested_  in bright ink.”

_Good cover, Kise. Fantastic job_. He holds his face in his hands, groaning. Momoi at least seems to take pity on him, scooting away from her drawing table to come wrap him up in a hug.  

“We know you’re struggling, Kise.” She deliberately lowers her voice. “We’re just worried about Dai-chan.”

“So am I!” he exclaims in a whisper, tiling his head to the side in his hands to look at Momoi’s face. “Are you guys even certain he knows about it yet?”

Momoi shakes her head, sincere. “He doesn’t. Not yet. You have to tell him before he finds out though, or you might lose him for good.”

Kise shoves his face back in his hands, groaning loudly. He mumbles something into his palms that no one can even understand, tiling his head so his lips are free when Momoi tells him to speak clearly.

“I don’t even  _have him_  so how can I _lose him_?” Momoi is about to respond with something snarky when she notices the added wetness of his eyes, the fact that his lips are trembling ever so slightly. She slips into his lap and wraps her arms around his neck, tucking his face into her neck and shushing him as quietly as she can. They’re in the protective confines of her station, surrounded by red velvet curtains except for the side facing the main piercing floor and a few tattoo stations, but sitting this way Kise is hidden from them all in the protection of her arms. He brings his arms up around her, grasping each of his wrists to keep himself close to her warmth.

“It’s hard for me too,” he admits so quietly even Momoi can barely hear him. His voice shakes. “You don’t know what I’m sacrificing for this, what  _parts_  of myself I’m sacrificing.”

“I’m sorry,” Momoi whispers, running her fingers through his hair comfortingly, tucking it behind his ear and letting the pads of her fingertips trace comforting lines down the shell of his ear.

“I love him.” Kise whispers, the first time he’s ever verbally admitted his feelings for Aomine. It’s a huge admission, one he never would have guessed that he would drop in The Zone, but there it is. It’s big enough that when Momoi’s brain catches up with his words, she flinches, pulls back and tilts his face up to look him in the eyes. He doesn’t even care if she’s questioning the sincerity and the depth of his feelings for Aomine. It’s all true and it has been eating him up inside for  _months_  keeping it silenced. Momoi accepts it swiftly; sees the fatigue in his eyes caged around the love he holds for Aomine, nodding her head with her own eyes filling with tears. He wonders if they are sad tears, because she empathizes with him in his shitty situation, or if they are happy tears because finally, finally there is someone that loves her best friend as much as she does, only in a slightly different way.

She carefully gets up from his lap, moving to the opening of her station and calling out to no one in particular that she is taking her break now. She unties the curtain and seals off her station completely, the light overhead the only reason they aren’t in complete darkness. She sits beside him on her free desk, hooking her leg over his and wrapping an arm around his back, letting him lean into her.

“Tell me,” she whispers, and he does.

He tells her everything.

 

✧

 

Kise thanks his lucky stars that he’s an almost silent crier, because he spends the next hour and a half trying to explain all the shit he has been internalizing to Momoi through tears and hiccups, all the while using the quietest voice he can manage so as to not disturb anyone in the shop, or let them hear his private conversation. When he’s finally gotten it all out, explained that the faux relationship is even worse than he’s imagined because he enjoys himself, but that even still all he thinks about when he’s with James is where Aomine is and what he’s doing. He’s holding his own posture rather than leaning on Momoi and she’s listening to him carefully, rubbing circles on his back.

Since the beginning of his time with James, Kise has been wondering about Aomine’s reaction to this new development in Kise’s life, has thought about all of his hard work in trying to get closer to Aomine, trying to let him in to the intimate facets of Kise’s life, all going to waste, all for a publicity stunt.

“A fucking  _publicity stunt_ ,” he echoes his own thoughts aloud, clenching his jaw and wiping the last vestiges of his tears from his eyes. Momoi nods, not saying a word. It’s what Kise needs. She only knows vaguely how stressful Kise’s job is, considering there is almost nothing about him that’s his own. She does know, however, that Kise is someone who values personal bonds more than anyone she knows and that the thought of not only faking one, but losing arguably the most important one he’s only just begun to trust in is too much for him to handle. He’s not the kind of person who cries easily, either. It’s usually when he’s overly exhausted, over-worked and slightly malnourished and too tired to even breathe normally that he’ll head into his bathroom, wherever the hell he’s living, and sit in a bath full of ice cold water. Cold; to shock his system, to keep him from falling asleep in the tub, to restart his thought processes so the positive could outweigh the negative. It usually works.

Instead of a bathtub this time, he’s come to Momoi. He hadn’t been planning on crying, that isn’t something he does, but with everything happening in his life and the added animosity inside The Zone, regardless of whether or not it was one hundred percent real and felt, has just been too much for Kise to bear. He’d cracked, right there in the wide-open space of the shop, in front of twenty or more people. He is lucky, though, that Momoi caught the breakdown so quick and reacted accordingly to get them a private space. She has no clients today, has only come into the shop to work on some prospective sketches, and Kise thanks his lucky stars a second time for her presence here in the shop.

His voice is a trembling whisper when he asks, “How am I going to tell him? How do I even start?”

“Honesty.” Momoi breathes, nodding her head and looking so strong there beside him. Deliberately strong for him, he knows.

“Honesty.” He repeats, nodding his head. “I have to see him tonight.”

“He’ll be home.” She responds with certainty, but offers no other consolation. Every line of her is made of strength, Kise realizes. Even when he’s crumbling in front of her, falling apart right on her turf, she doesn’t just cater to his every teary need. She makes him work for it, makes him rebuild himself to be strong again so he can head back out into the real world as prepared as he can be. He can already feel his rationale returning, his determination and resiliency roiling in the pit of his stomach, a long-forgotten hunger. He can do this.

He will do this.

“I’m going to see him tonight,” he rephrases his earlier sentiment, his voice lined with steel. He straightens, his back popping slightly from its hunched position. He moves away from Momoi’s comforting hand rubbing circles on his back and stands, massaging the skin around his eyes to make it look a little less like he’d just completely lost his shit. He glances down at Momoi, who is still perched on the edge of the desk, hands resting lightly in her lap. He stands straight and tall, the soul of resiliency he is known to be.

“I’m going to tell him tonight.” He declares, voice resolute, chin lifted.

“Good,” she responds quietly, smiling up at him. After a brief moment of silence, she hops off the counter and heads over to another drawer. She pulls out a polka-dot bag and begins laying makeup materials out on her desk, kicking her rolling chair back over to him without even looking. He wheels it back to her, sitting in it and waiting for her to turn back to him. When she does, she’s holding foundation in one hand and a brush in the other.

“First, though, I’m going to fix up your face so Dai-chan doesn’t know you were getting snot and tears all over my station. He’d end you.”

Laughing through a pathetic hiccup, Kise nods his head and scoots a bit closer so that she has optimum lighting. As her brush touches his cheek and the area around his eyes, he lets them slip shut, trusts her blindly with fixing up his flushed and clammy face. She works in silence for a few moments, her fingers incredibly gentle whenever they shift his face this way and that. When she turns back and dabs some liquid foundation on her pinky finger, he opens his eyes and waits for her to turn around and meet his gaze. When she finally does, she pauses, watchful.

“Thank you.” He says, and they can both hear the silent words trailing afterwards.

_For everything_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (steeples fingers) It Begins


	7. Chapter 7

Kise’s shaking hands fold and unfold the tiny scrap of paper with Aomine’s address written in Momoi’s tiny, bubbly font as he stands outside of Aomine’s apartment door. It’s already creasing and there’s even the beginning of a rip on one side from being repeatedly opened and sealed, but Kise is overflowing with nervous energy and giving his hands something to do calms him enough to keep a clear head. Aomine is somewhere inside, probably napping on the couch, if he even has a couch, and Kise is going to be disturbing him.

But this is too important to abandon ship and flee from, even if it does mean waking Aomine up and facing his infamous post-nap wrath. Kise takes in a shaky breath, glancing down the steps he’s just climbed to reach Aomine’s room on the second floor. The walls are a plain, humdrum light green but they’re lined with crown molding, which had surprised Kise enough to distract him when he’d reached the top of the stairs. The carpet is a deep ruddy brown and there are several mats in front of nearby rooms, but Aomine’s remains bare. There is a small gash and indent on the front of Aomine’s door that was clearly left from someone’s powerful kick. It makes Kise curious, but given that it’s Aomine’s place, it isn’t exactly surprising.

Kise folds the note back up once and for all, slipping it into his back left jean pocket. He lifts a hand up and knocks on the door before he can even think about changing his mind, stepping back a pace to wait anxiously for Aomine to open the door. Or not, if he actually is napping. In fact, it’s highly likely that he won’t even answer the door and then Kise will have to go back to his hotel room, come up with a new game plan, re-garner the courage to approach Aomine on his own with such a tense topic, and—

“Kise?”

Or Aomine can just answer the door and look at a nervously distracted Kise like he isn’t sure what species he belongs to. Kise straightens, lifting a hand to self-consciously rub at the back of his neck, smiling so wide his eyes crinkle shut.

“Aominecchi,” he gasps, laughing a little. “You surprised me!”

“You were the one who knocked on my door, ya know.” Aomine merely raises a brow at him, leaning against the doorframe with a big yawn. When his mouth snaps shut and his eyes come back to Kise, they trace the area around Kise’s eyes with a sudden sharp intensity that makes Kise want to shift his weight and glance away. It’s almost as though Aomine can see right through Momoi’s masterfully applied makeup to the reddened skin beneath. Instead of glancing off to the side like he wants to, he compromises by taking in the simple clothing that Aomine is wearing: a plain white shirt with small sweat stains and a pair of jeans, with his hair mussed like he’s been pushing it into a pillow. Kise knows instantly that he’d been right: Aomine had been napping. That makes him wonder at Aomine’s pleasant greeting and how it had been severely lacking his notorious post-nap hostility.

“Right!” Kise nods, letting his smile drop to something far more genuine.

“Well, uh, would it be all right if I came in?” Aomine is still giving him that measured look, frowning even as he nods his head and moves to the side. He watches Kise enter and closes the door behind him, his arms coming up to cross over his chest as he follows Kise a few steps into the front room. The place is an absolute mess with clothes scattered across the floor and over furniture, shoes thrown about, and a massive table across the way covered in art supplies to the extent that Kise can’t even see an inch of the desktop. He turns back to Aomine with a raised brow, incredulous.

“This place is a pigsty!” He gasps, picturing the tidy neatness of Aomine’s workstation and wondering how in the world that place and this come from the same person.

“It’s not that bad,” Aomine immediately defends, toeing a pair of dirty underwear that had literally been a few steps from the front door over to the corner, as if Kise isn’t right in front of him and can’t see him doing it. Aomine scowls.

“Fuck off,” he grumbles, shifting his weight and pretending like he isn’t trying to distract Kise from seeing him try to grab a pair of basketball shorts off the ground with his toes. Kise doesn’t even want to know what he plans on doing when his toes would finally find purchase on the material, shaking his head in a mixture of amusement and disturbed awe at how starkly Aomine’s home differs from his workstation. In The Zone, he is the most organized person and even goes so far as to complain about others’ messy stations until they clean up shop. And yet here, in his most private and personal place, Kise isn’t sure he can step in any direction without finding an article of clothing underfoot. Some of them are probably even clean.

Aomine glares at him, lip curling. “You just come here to trash talk my place or you did you actually want something?”

Properly scolded, Kise ducks his head and nods. “Right, right. I actually have something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. It’s…kind of a long story.”

“Seems like it’d be,” Aomine mutters, frowning even more as Kise looks up at him in surprise. In answer to the question in Kise’s eyes, Aomine elaborates. “You look like shit.”

“So mean,” he whines, mentally cursing Aomine’s keen eyes. There’s something about his expression that has Kise holding his tongue, though. Not because he doesn’t want to spoil it, but because the timing that he has worked so hard to get right feels disturbingly wrong. Like bringing his news into this place, at this moment, is inappropriate. It’s hard to explain the feeling in his gut, the weight on his chest and the lump in his throat that holds the words at bay, but he knows that even after he’s worked so hard for this moment to unfold before him, it isn’t right, and he isn’t the kind of person to ignore his instinct, his gut feelings. This is one of them, so instead of spilling his guts like he’s planned, he shifts the mood instantly.

“Actually, I sort of lied. I have the day off and I thought it’d be fun if I taught you how to cook!”

Aomine stares at him for a good, long minute, studying his expression even as his own darkens from one moment to the next. His right eye is twitching.

“You want to teach me how to cook? That’s why you came over here and interrupted my nap?” Kise only smirks at the dangerous gleam in Aomine’s eyes, recognizing at last the hostility that always follows Aomine’s naps. Laughing lightly, Kise nods his head and lifts one arm up and around to pat at his own back.

“Remember? You scratched my back, now I’ll scratch yours!”

There’s another long moment of silence through which Aomine only stares blankly at Kise, the only thing in his apartment that is bright enough to actually glow. Most of the art on the walls are done in black ink on white paper, though a few in color are mixed in, mostly in his bedroom—not that Kise was anywhere  _near_  his bedroom, but he can see a glimpse of it. His furniture and accessories are all in shades of black or gray, which Momoi constantly complains about, saying something about his place being a soul-sucking cave. Aomine quite likes it. Surrounded by dark colors like he is, it’s almost impossible for him to get distracted by anything.

Kise is the most distracting person he knows, even more so than Momoi. He’s constantly dressed in ridiculous outfits with flowers and small animals and bright colors and any endless amount of details that often make Aomine scowl. His hair is a halo that reflects the light in his amber eyes, looking equally as warm and untouchable. Kise is sort of like fire, in that way. It’s easy to get lost staring at him, watching the different ways in which his body and his face move, the way he smiles and his eyes become wildfires dancing in the wind. He’s pretty, too—all soft edges and smooth defined lines moving elegantly—like fire, though Aomine will never admit it.

He is also dangerous. There’s something addicting about his personality, the way that he can walk into a room and warm the coldest of personalities to his side, have them smiling and laughing with very little effort. The way that his eyes flash in challenge whenever the guys at the shop mess with him—and the sharp bite to his tongue when he sings rebuttals straight back through to their cores. The way that just looking up and seeing him there, in The Zone, and hearing his voice makes Aomine feel relaxed when he hadn’t even known he was tense. That, Aomine thinks, is dangerous.

But Aomine has never been one to back down from danger. His body itself is a testament to that, covered in ink and scars alike. He likes challenging danger, seeing if it really has the right to be classified as something he should fear or if it’s all a bluff, as so many disrespectful kids of his childhood had turned out to be. Danger entices him, brings life back into his eyes like a lit match to a fuse, that quick and that explosive. But there are also certain types of danger that even Aomine Daiki knows to be wary of, and Kise Ryouta is one of them.

When Momoi had introduced Kise to their shop and their friends, Aomine had ignored him, thinking all the while that he’d be gone sooner rather than later. Or at least, he’d tried to ignore him and had failed pretty spectacularly. There’s no way he could’ve ignored how good-looking Kise is, or how every line of his body promises a new challenge every day—a fact that had enticed and worried Aomine almost instantly—or how easily he can navigate conversations, even when the topics are unfamiliar to him. A Jack-of-all-trades, some will call him. Aomine has settled on calling him a nuisance.

When Kise kept appearing in Aomine’s shop and it didn’t seem that he would ever leave, Aomine had to admit that it was completely impossible to even try to ignore the blond. So instead, he’d approached him cautiously, like a wild animal, mostly standing back and watching when no one else was looking. Except for Momoi, who is far too detail-oriented to have ever missed the extra glances he shot in Kise’s direction, or the way his eyes would ignite whenever Kise’s did.

Eventually, Kise ingrained himself so thoroughly into the routine of The Zone that Aomine accepted him as a friend, though he never told anyone as much. It was just that simple, that easy. Kise showed up one day and his presence never seemed to leave. He left an impression on everything and everyone he came into contact with, a lasting memory even when he was gone.

Aomine can’t exactly pin down when Kise had captured his feelings or when he’d realized that Kise is extra dangerous to someone like himself, but he’d known the moment he’d laid eyes on the blond that he was wildfire; untamable, untouchable, and utterly beautiful. This was only magnified as time passed and Aomine was exposed to more and more of Kise’s charming personality and striking appearance.

It became clear all too quickly that the closer Aomine got to Kise, the more he  _burned_.

“Idiot,” he says, but his lips curve up into a smirk as he turns and heads toward his kitchenette. He has no idea what kind of food is in his fridge; junk mostly. Kise takes a look and doesn’t say much about it, though, merely offering dishes they had the items available to make and asking which one Aomine wants to try. He answers absently, still watching Kise with careful, speculative eyes. There is something about the way he’s holding himself, something about the way his eyes look shinier than usual, fractured and jaded, that have the hairs on the back of Aomine’s neck standing on end, something that makes him feel dangerous.

Kise sets to work pulling out the appropriate foods to make a hearty omelet, spreading them out along the countertop and explaining all of what can be mixed into the eggs. He glances surreptitiously over his shoulder, making sure that Aomine is paying attention and forcing him to dice the tomatoes when he just continues to stand there doing nothing but watching. His process is sloppy and the tomatoes are being mashed more than diced but there is something about the way that Aomine holds the knife that makes Kise both curious and uneasy. He handles it familiarly, like he’s used to wielding a blade.

Kise finds the thought ridiculous even as memories of Momoi discussing their rocky childhood flutter to the surface of his mind. He shakes the thought away, taking a fracture of a moment after heating the stove and placing the pan on it to admire Aomine’s intricate sleeve tattoos from so close a vantage point, unconsciously smiling. When Aomine finishes obliterating the tomatoes, he turns to Kise but doesn’t look him in the eyes, which is a little alarming.

Kise glances curiously at his face and finds his eyes widening at the light tint of pink on Aomine’s cheeks, wondering what in the world has made the taller of the two blush and how he can do whatever it is that caused it again as soon as possible to intensify the effect.

“Okay, what else do you want in your omelet?” he asks, gesturing to all of the supplies laid out before them. Aomine crosses his arms over his chest and grunts.

“I don’t have any kind of meat so this is useless anyways.”

Kise frowns at him, saying, “It’s healthy!”

“Healthy,” Aomine snarls, “usually tastes like shit.”

“Aominecchi, you haven’t even  _tried_  it.” Kise gives him a pensive look, eyes narrowing critically. Aomine seems completely unaffected.

He shrugs. “I don’t need to.”

“Do you like eggs? Tomatoes?”

“Yeah,” Aomine grunts again, shifting his weight so that he can scowl at Kise. Not having any of it, Kise frowns right back, though his expression is far more playful.

“Then you’ll like this! It’s so simple to make, come on.” Kise ushers him back to the kitchen counter and Aomine, a little resistant, eventually follows suit.

Just as Kise had said, it takes them only a few minutes total to finish up their two omelets. Aomine complains about how they’ll probably taste terrible the entire time and ends up making an uneven omelet by flipping one side too powerfully and landing it almost out of the pan. He curses the eggs, the pan, and then cooking altogether before deciding that maybe baking is a better idea. Surprisingly enough, Aomine has all the supplies and ingredients necessary to make chocolate chip cookies from a box, which Kise had guessed Momoi had been responsible for until he sees Aomine’s expression and hears his bland, “Yeah…Satsuki.”

Kise moves towards the oven and shows him how to preheat it according to the box’s instructions. They head back over to the box, the air in the kitchen quiet and comfortable as Kise waits for Aomine to tear it open, watching blandly as he rips right through the instructions on the back. Shaking his head and laughing at the disgruntled expression on Aomine’s face, he glances around the kitchen in search of something to wear over his clothes.

“Hey, Aominecchi, do you have an apron?” Aomine starts to shoot him an incredulous look, as if to say  _why the fuck would I have an apron_ , before his eyes light up in surprise.

“Holy shit, I do.” He says, walking over to the tall, thin door of the pantry behind the kitchen table and opening it. He reaches around until he manages to find purchase on the material. He comes back and holds it out to Kise, looking at the plain, bright pink material like it’s an alien entity, like he doesn’t know what it is doing in his place.

He glances nervously at Kise, scowling. “Sometimes Satsuki cooks for me. I almost forgot she bought this.”

“Seems pretty unforgettable,” Kise smirks at the second flash of surprise that crosses Aomine’s features, his cheeks lightly flushed. Quicker than Kise can even track, he glances over Kise’s body with dazed eyes, his expression confused and dopey. Kise just laughs at him, slipping the apron over his head and tying it behind his tailbone. He gestures for Aomine to follow him back over to the counter, explaining how easy it is to just follow the instructions on the box exactly.

Kise glances over his shoulder, his tone teasing as he says, “It’s a good thing I’m an experienced cookie-maker, Aominecchi, since you tore right through the instructions…”

Aomine flushes bright red; scowl deepening as one hand lifts to scratch idly at his side. “Yeah, whatever. Get to the teaching.”

“Bossy!” Kise chirps, opening the bag of flour and choking a little. Aomine immediately starts laughing at him, mocking his earlier claim about being an experienced cookie-maker and asking innocently if every master chef choked on the powder they work with. Kise responds as any self-respecting long-time baker would: he flicks a small handful of powder right in Aomine’s face. As Kise starts to laugh at his powder-covered face, Aomine just stands there, hands poised close to his face but frozen so as to not rub the powder into his closed eyes. Slowly, he flicks the powder away from his eyelids and creases and glares balefully at a positively beaming Kise.

“Now, can we get back to baking? The student really shouldn’t make fun of the master—hey, what are you doing? Aominecchi, don’t you  _dare_ ,” Kise finds himself slowly backing away from Aomine, who is now wielding the entire bag of mix in his hands and a smirk that promises retribution.  _Messy_  retribution.

“We’re gonna  _need_   _that_  if we’re actually going to—”

Before the words can even finish leaving Kise’s mouth, Aomine is moving as quick as lightning, flinging the entire bag at Kise and hooting in amusement when Kise squeals. He doesn’t even pause as he swoops down and picks up the almost-empty bag, upturning it over Aomine’s head and laughing when he shakes like a dog to get the powder out of his hair. Their laughter soon turns into taunts as they begin to wrestle each other for the olive oil bottle.

“You’re  _so_  going to regret this!” Kise promises even as he tries to swipe a leg behind Aomine’s to make him fall over. Aomine somehow escapes the move, however, and merely smirks right in Kise’s face, so close their lips almost touch. They struggle over the bottle for a few minutes, still threatening each other, still choking on their own laughter and the flour still on their faces and bodies. Finally, when they are both out of breath and pressed against the counter, Kise decides it’s time to attempt a truce.

“Okay,  _okay_ , enough! Enough, enough! Truce?”

Aomine’s response is immediate: “To hell with that!”

“ _Aominecchi_ ,” Kise insists, catching his fiery gaze and holding it with his own, his expression transforming effortlessly from determined to pouty. “Truce. Please?”

“Spoilsport,” Aomine mumbles around a sigh, vegetable oil still cradled between their bodies and their hands all the while his eyes never leave Kise’s. He searches them quietly for a long moment, studying Kise’s perfect pout before he begins to pull back. Kise isn’t entirely sure he can trust him not to overturn the entire bottle on his head, so he keeps a watchful eye on him until the bottle is back on the counter and Aomine has his arms crossed over his chest, hip leaning against the counter.

He’s still studying Kise, but not just his face any longer. His blue eyes dip low and trace the sculpted line of Kise’s shoulders, the way his waist tailors down into thin hips hidden behind the pink apron. Kise feels his face heating up but he refuses,  _refuses_  to reach a hand up to feel his flushed cheek in front of Aomine. Instead, he watches Aomine watching him, his lips curled up into a gentle smile. After a long moment of simply staring at each other, covered in cookie mix and still fired up from their smalltime wrestling match, Aomine clears his throat and smirks.

He says, “You know, Kise, you’d look a lot better in that apron if you had tits.”

Kise huffs, finally turning away from Aomine to clean his hands of their added layer of powder while simultaneously getting the sink faucet covered in the it as well.

“My firm, Greek god ass makes up for that.” He jokes, tone playfully arrogant as he rinses the soap from his hands. He can hear Aomine moving around behind him and wonders if he is actually cleaning some of the mess they’ve made. Unsurprisingly, Aomine is not cleaning.

Instead, he seems to want to test Kise’s words for accuracy as his large hand suddenly cups Kise’s left butt cheek through his jeans. Gasping, Kise immediately glances over his shoulder to find Aomine’s face much closer than he’d been expecting, ass-grab or not. He turns his body until his tailbone is resting against the counter even as he sucks in a deep breath, his hands dripping water all over the floor.

Aomine is there before Kise can even reprimand him, teeth and tongue and lips all coming to meet Kise’s with an intensity Kise has grown used to expecting from Aomine. Both of them seem to have flipped a switch somewhere and Kise’s hands are trying to find some part of Aomine’s biceps or shoulders to hold on to while Aomine’s hands travel all over Kise’s body, tugging almost playfully at the apron before slipping past to pull his shirt up enough to expose his hips. Aomine’s hands spend some precious time there where he digs his nails in and makes Kise want to  _scream_  before he moves them around Kise’s ass and underneath his thighs. He lifts Kise with ease and stands tucked in-between his legs while Kise’s ankles lock together behind Aomine’s tailbone.

They clash and nip at each other and  _God_ , Kise thinks; this is so overdue, so long awaited for the both of them. Aomine’s kissing him like he’s captured the sun and he wants to covet the heat, his tongue tracing the sharp edge of Kise’s teeth before his own lips come down to bite on Kise’s bottom lip. Kise mewls, uncaring of how needy he sounds; especially when he hears Aomine moan in response, feels the deep vibration of it in his mouth. Aomine tastes like Gatorade, the light blue kind that Kise enjoys in the heat of summer after working out. If he hadn’t been so busy trying to tear Aomine’s shirt forcefully off his body, he might have laughed at that.

“I’ve waited so fucking long,” Aomine groans into the side of Kise’s neck, where he is now nipping and sucking a hickey that’s going to be so dark not even Momoi’s masterful foundation skills will be able to cover it. Kise finds that he doesn’t mind, in fact, he’s embarrassingly into the thought of having Aomine’s marks all over him for everyone to see. The butterflies in his stomach are too busy lifting his heart up into his throat for him to retain his focus for long, but he holds onto Aomine’s words and seals them behind his ribcage like a gift made only for him. He’s waited and wanted for so long to hear as much from Aomine—to have his own feelings reciprocated and validated, and the words taste just as sweetly as he’s always dreamed they would.

“You were drunk off your ass the first time so there was no way we were going to fuck. That was torture.” Aomine’s voice is a guttural rasp and Kise actually does choke at that, pulling his head back and laughing as he looks down at Aomine with smiling eyes, his hands ceasing their struggle to remove Aomine’s plain white shirt and coming up instead to cup his face as he grins down at him from his higher perch on the counter. He dips down and sucks on Aomine’s bottom lip in response, breathing in the moan his ministrations cause.

“I’m so fucking into you,” Aomine whispers, his tone unashamed and intimate. Kise’s head is spinning, his thoughts the ocean waves of a storm he can’t navigate, amazed that Aomine’s being so verbal about his feelings and wondering why in the world Aomine has never expressed these sentiments to Kise  _earlier_. It was so obvious, and okay, maybe Kise is a part of the problem what with his multitude of secrets, but the result is still the same: they had both been pining for one another when they could’ve been dating and kissing and  _fucking_  whenever they wanted to. Kise feels like a fool, but he’s the happiest fool alive at that moment and he doesn’t care who knows it.

Kise has never reacted so passionately to anyone in his life—has never before been reduced to the panting, keening creature that he is right now. He’s always been the more experienced partner in his relationships, something he’s comfortable with but not anything he’s ever felt the need to brag about. Aomine’s movements are inexperienced but his lips are magic, his passion and his intensity making up for his clumsy hands. It’s fairly clear that Kise is more sexually experienced but Aomine matches him passion for passion, his intensity incredible, and his every touch and kiss is more than enough to arouse Kise to the point where every other breath seems to come out as a quiet moan. If Kise had had the mind to slow down and pay attention to every detail, he might’ve noticed that Aomine’s hands were shaking.

He’s never been this in love with anyone in his life and he’s never felt like he’s running out of time quicker than he is now. He doesn’t have the luxury of being coy. He kisses his way up Aomine’s sharp cheekbone and bites at the first and largest barbell in his earlobe, tugging it once with his teeth before he speaks, his voice a husky, rasping whisper.

“I’ve wanted you to be  _fucking into me_  since the moment I saw you.”

And somewhere in the deepest recesses of his muddled mind, Kise realizes how blatant that was and thinks,  _zero tact, but points for creativity_.

Aomine seems to have enjoyed it; he curses harshly, his hands leaving the tops of Kise’s thighs to reach behind and grab his ass, pulling him flush against his erection. Kise nuzzles into his neck, cheeks on fire, body on fire, and mind ablaze. Aomine nudges Kise’s face away from his neck and kisses him like a man possessed, biting hard enough on his upper lip to make Kise hiss. He intertwines his fingers under Kise and lifts him away from the counter, walking him through the apartment and into his room without ever removing his lips from Kise’s.

He sets Kise down on the edge of the bed so gently Kise feels like his heart stutters and skips a beat, which isn’t healthy and is actually concerning but he can’t find the energy to care. Not when Aomine is laying him out before him like a favored dish, his hand sliding down over his chest, his abdomen, his hip and stopping on his thigh. Kise suddenly realizes that he is still wearing the apron, his hands coming up and tugging behind his tailbone to untie it, his face scrunching up into a concentrated frown. Upon seeing it, Aomine laughs, pressing his lips to the apron where he thinks Kise’s belly button might be, so unexpectedly tender it takes Kise’s breath away.

He’s still in that position with his ass up in the air and his lips pressed to Kise’s shirt and apron-clad abs when he poses a dangerous question in a joking tone, unknowing of how easily it freezes and centers Kise’s thoughts.

“So, when you gonna tell me about that thing you wanted to talk about earlier?” Aomine trails up the length of Kise’s body as he stills, his hands pausing in their struggle to untie the apron, his eyes fastened on Aomine in shock. Luckily, Aomine doesn’t seem to notice as he continues to work his way up and over Kise’s body, settling his weight lightly down until their hips are pressed together and he’s resting on one elbow while his free hand gently grasps Kise’s chin and turns his face to the side so that he can suck on the hinge of his jaw. He works slowly over to the other side of Kise’s neck, sucking and gently biting the soft skin there as well. Even though the words had been his, he’s even more distracted with wanting to press closer to Kise, to kiss and lick every part of him that he can reach, and later, everywhere else, and Kise’s thankful for it.

But he also feels like crying. He wants to pull away, to run away, to not have this conversation come in-between them in such a crucial moment of growth for them, when they’ve finally let all of their walls down and are being completely honest with each other—and he realizes that that’s the key. Honesty. This, right here, with the both of them preparing to share the secrets of their bodies with one another, is all about being honest with one another, with trusting each other.

Kise knows now that he can’t run, not ever again, not from Aomine. He has to stand his ground and be sincere, has to respect Aomine by approaching the potential conflicts that concern their relationship just as Aomine had done earlier, by stating them outright and addressing them in the open. Knowing this doesn’t make the words come out any easier or with any more confidence, but it does make his heart settle slightly and his mind calm enough for him to get the words out without them shaking.

“I’m fake-dating someone.”

Aomine freezes, a panther poised to strike but restraining himself nonetheless, before lifting his face from Kise’s neck and staring severely into Kise’s unblinking eyes. The question there is clear, the demand for an explanation even more so, but there is a surprising amount of what Kise can only interpret as conviction hidden away in Aomine’s beautiful yet intimidating gaze. Kise latches on to the possibility of Aomine’s faith in their relationship and presses on as bravely as he can.

He explains the entire situation in spurts, backtracking to make sure he gets all the details he may have missed and running through everything thoroughly enough that it is blatantly clear that everything about his relationship with James is a hoax, a publicity stunt. He never looks away from Aomine’s gaze and Aomine never once looks away from his. Kise isn’t even sure if he’s making sense because he’s so nervous and the timing feels so poor but Aomine’s unbreakable gaze keeps his resolve strong and he manages to get it all out with as much clarity as he can manage.

“I hate it,” he finishes quietly, “I fucking hate that I have to do it. You might not believe me, but it’s the truth.”

Aomine had come to rest just above Kise on both of his elbows with one hand beginning to play absently with strands of Kise’s hair some time into his explanation. Aomine’s eyes are watchful, no longer questioning, lit bright with lasting tendrils of curiosity. He studies Kise’s eyes for a brief moment longer, leaning so that his left elbow bears most of his weight and his right hand is free to come up and touch Kise’s features, his fingertips gently tracing the delicate skin around Kise’s enigmatic eyes. Kise knows without a doubt that this is Aomine’s silent way of validating his earlier concerns about Kise looking like shit as accurate, his brows coming down slightly in concern. It’s in those eyes that Kise sees the recognition, knows that Aomine knows that he’d been crying earlier that day. He doesn’t bring it up, doesn’t ask about it, just nods his head in acceptance.

“You like this guy?” he finally asks, his tone searching. Kise answers him instantly, his tone resolute.

“ _No_.”

Aomine examines that answer, rolls it around in his mind and ultimately bobs his head once in a single, accepting nod. Then he’s dipping forward, diving back down to suck on Kise’s lips with so much skill and a new wave of passion that Kise’s toes curl in his shoes. He lets himself lay there unmoving as Aomine kisses him so tenderly he wonders if he’s dreaming, unable to believe that Aomine has let the conversation go that easily. He wonders if it’s just because he doesn’t want to interrupt this momment they’ve both been waiting so long for, but something about that thought and the way that Aomine’s eyes are now looking at him with something like trust laced with a promise, immediately invalidates that notion.

He realizes then, that Aomine is returning the respect that Kise has shown him by being honest with him. He is respecting their relationship by trusting in Kise wholeheartedly and moving on from something that, with Kise’s promise, he doesn’t believe to be a threat any longer. Even in Kise’s most detailed and hopeful dreams he had never expected this conversation to go this well. He’d expected a fight, an argument, retention of Aomine’s exposed personality and affections for Kise. Anything but acceptance and trust and what feels dangerously like  _love_. So instead of making a big deal out of it like he’d expected that he’d have to, Kise falls into Aomine’s rhythm and flourishes beneath his larger body.

His hands release the sheets he’s been white-knuckling to grasp the edge of Aomine’s white shirt, lifting it slightly, almost tentatively. Aomine lifts himself away from Kise’s lips at once, sitting up with his butt coming down to gently rest on Kise’s groin as he reaches over his shoulders and grasps the material of his shirt before tucking forward and pulling it up and off of him with ease. He flings the shirt off into the abyss that is his messy room, but Kise’s eyes are glued to his exposed chest and abdomen, drinking in the sight of his defined muscles, the tattoos that Kise has never seen before since they’re always hidden beneath his shirts, a smattering of scars that surprise Kise, and the most enticing reveal of all: pierced nipples.

Pierced  _nipples_.

Kise feels the blood actively pooling in his cheeks as the attraction he feels for Aomine unexpectedly spikes, remembering the first time he’d caught a glimpse of Aomine’s pierced nipple and wondered if it had a match. He feels his cock jump in his pants and flushes bright red, looking away from the steel pierced through each brown nipple, equally as tantalizing as they are distracting. Instead he focuses on the revealed tattoos, though it’s a little difficult to see them and all of their details in the cover of night coming through the floor-to-ceiling windows off to the side of Aomine’s bedroom. The moonlight is his only aid and it falls across Aomine like a sheer curtain wrapping lovingly around his skin, highlighting the stark contrast of the ink against his dark complexion.

He can see the starkly inked panther that is undoubtedly Momoi’s work in its entirety over his right hip, with small, artfully crafted strokes depicting the texture of the fur. Kise is amazed by it, sitting up slightly to get a better look a the way the massive cat’s head and shoulders curl around to look behind it with mouth gaping open in a roar. He can also see the revealed dragon that crawls over his left shoulder and ends on his shoulder blade. His eyes widen when he realizes that he recognizes the full sleeve, remembers flipping through Momoi’s portfolio and stopping to stare at an intricately detailed full sleeve with a midnight sky for a background, soft clouds and a masterfully crafted dragon with a delicate, fluid wheat grass mane, and several tears in the dragon’s scales that leak scarlet blood. This is the tattoo that Kise had chosen as his favorite out of all of Momoi’s incredible works of art, and this is the arm he’d seen captured in a photograph and tucked away within Momoi’s portfolio.

No wonder his initial impression of it had left him feeling like it was well loved—no one loves tattoos more than Aomine Daiki does.

“That dragon—those colors,” Kise whispers, eyes wide, looking up and catching the smug look on Aomine’s face.

“Yeah, the dragon’s Satsuki’s, the colors are mine. I mixed them for her and she did all the work.” He explains, glancing over at the dragon almost fondly before looking back to Kise with the same heavy eyes, the same flicker of affection there in the blue tints of them.

He can’t hold himself back any longer, sitting up until his mouth presses a tender kiss to Aomine’s left nipple, the one gleaming in the moonlight. His tongue comes out to play with the piercing, pushing around it and sucking it into his mouth so that his teeth can tug at it too. Aomine hisses above him, carding his hands through Kise’s hair and keeping him there. Kise’s hands come up to rest over Aomine’s firm sides, his nails digging in slightly then massaging the areas so as to quell the sting. His left hand comes up to play with Aomine’s other nipple when he realizes that he’d been neglecting it, pinching it lightly and pulling back to stare at the now-wet barbell he’d just been lavishing with attention. He smirks up at Aomine, whose eyes are glazed over and jumping from each of Kise’s before he bends down for another kiss, this one more tender than all of the others before it.

One of his strong hands comes down to rest on Kise’s shoulder, pushing lightly to get him to lie back down. When Kise’s head lands on Aomine’s pillow, Aomine makes short work of undressing Kise completely. He flicks each article of clothing in different directions, uncaring of where they land. By the time Kise is shirtless and only clad in his boxer briefs, Aomine is on his knees between his legs and peeling them down his muscular thighs. Kise thinks it a little unfair that Aomine is still wearing his jeans, but seeing the proximity of Aomine’s face to Kise’s groin, he thinks it‘s only appropriate to let it slide.

The moment that Kise’s cock comes free from his boxer briefs and comes up to rest against his navel, Aomine is already there, his hot breath cresting Kise’s slit. He feels Aomine slip his boxer briefs off of his toes and can hear the material drop to the floor just as he opens his eyes and meets Aomine’s rapacious gaze. Aomine doesn’t waste time by pressing his lips to the base or licking the underside of the head, he just takes as much of Kise’s cock in his mouth as he can and starts sucking. Kise’s hands had been aiming for Aomine’s hair but at the force of Aomine’s technique they drop to the sheets and  _squeeze_ , his breath spluttering out of him in broken moans.

“Ah, yeah, just like that,” he gasps, tossing his head back and unclenching one fist to bring his hand up to pinch at one of his own nipples, enjoying the sting in comparison to the pleasure that’s building up in his lower abdomen. Aomine is meticulous yet rough and at times he seems to purposely let his teeth scrape up and down Kise’s cock, making him lose his breath with flashes of fear and excitement. At Kise’s insistence, he does just that: drags his teeth until they scrape slightly and Kise’s hips rise up without his conscious awareness.

Aomine has one hand on Kise’s thigh, his fingers idly massaging. The sensations are all too much for Kise, not to mention that Aomine is now incorporating his own moans into the process, though they’re scattered in a way that confuses Kise, who had originally thought that Aomine was just adding vibrations to the already spectacular blowjob he is giving in order to truly send Kise shattering to pieces. But there is no rhythm to the moans, no plotting or planning, they come and they go at various times and Kise is too far gone to really think about it, but his gut is telling him that Aomine is simply  _enjoying_  himself.

Enjoying himself so much that every time Kise’s hips jerk up and press his cock further down Aomine’s throat, he’s rewarded with a deep moan that sends vibrations up his groin and through his entire body until he’s choking on them. Ironic, he thinks distractedly, that Aomine is so good at this that he can make the person on the receiving end choke on mere sensations while he manages just fine with a cock partway down his throat.

Kise’s mind turns over into a shuddering haze as he feels the sudden slow-building fire in his gut become a full-fledged burn under his skin and he knows that if he doesn’t stop Aomine right now, they’re going to have a serious problem on their hands.

But then, just as Kise opens his mouth to tell Aomine to stop or to warn him or  _something_ , Aomine brings the hand that has been resting on his thigh up to wrap tightly around the base of Kise’s cock and pulls back completely, his hand the only part of him remaining on Kise’s skin. Kise whines, feels that indescribable feeling beginning to slip away, and wonders if Aomine is doing this intentionally.

When he glances up at Aomine and sees the way his lips are quirked in delight and his eyes are a burning promise, he has his answer.

“Oh my God,” Kise moans, frustrated and needy as he writhes on the sheets. “ _So_  rude.”

Aomine only huffs out a laugh and drops back down to suck at Kise’s neck again, his tongue wet and hot as it slides over Kise’s skin. Kise wraps his legs around Aomine’s hips and presses his still-hard erection up against his lower abdomen, wanting to remind him that he's is still in a flustered state of almost shattered but still very much so _in one piece_ , much to his irritation. He’s too wrapped up in the press of Aomine’s lips to his throat, to his pulse, to the corner of his sharp jaw, to even begin to think if any of his partners have ever brought him to the edge before and just as swiftly pulled the rug out from under his feet.

After some suggestive thrusts on Kise’s end Aomine pulls back with a groan, reaching back to grasp Kise’s ankles and disentangle them from around his hips. Kise presses his knees together, a little too nervous to sit with legs spread in front of Aomine’s open perusal, and watches as Aomine shifts off the bed and slips carelessly out of his jeans and boxers. Kise watches the slow expanse of him revealed, slightly surprised to see his groin area completely devoid of any tattoos.

“I’ve got time,” Aomine grumbles, glancing up at him curiously. Kise startles, flushing when he realizes that he’d been thinking out loud. He just nods his head in agreement as Aomine moves forward to reach into his bedside drawer and remove the lube he apparently keeps there. He turns back to crawl over Kise’s body, laying kisses along his fair skin all the while. Before he knows it, Aomine is back at his throat; biting at the same spot he’s been lavishing with attention all night. Kise is too into it to care at this particular moment, though later when he’ll have to lather liquid foundation over his entire neck he might have a little more to say about it.

Kise lifts his hips again and feels for the first time the incredible feeling of his cock pressing against Aomine’s and marvels at the reality of it. He and Aomine are both naked, pressed together from head to toe, and Aomine is sucking the world’s darkest hickey onto his neck like he’s been waiting to do so for  _ages_. Kise can barely breathe anything that isn’t Aomine’s name, can barely breathe  _at all_ , not with the way that Aomine moves—confident and self-assured even when he has no clue what he’s doing. There’s no hesitation in any of his movements; everything is swift and completed with delicious follow-through. Well, everything but Kise’s actual  _orgasm_.

“Aominecchi, please,” he finally begs, pressing his hips up against Aomine’s so that there is absolutely no missing his intention. Aomine’s voice rumbles by his ear and he kisses the tender skin there, even as his hands—big and rough and long-fingered like  _sin_ —slide down Kise’s thighs and pull until Kise’s legs are able to wrap around Aomine’s hips once more. There is a fire in Aomine’s eyes that tells Kise there’s no teasing this time, no bringing him to the edge and stopping before he can fragment into unimaginable pleasure. Aomine’s right hand is still holding the lube, moving along the inside of Kise’s thigh and inching ever closer at a pace that is almost too slow for Kise to bear. His nose nudges against Kise’s as he presses their lips together, slow and soothing, abruptly different from his previous passionate attacks of lips and teeth and tongue. It’s such a drastic shift that Kise feels disoriented with it, love-drunk on Aomine’s every kiss.

And then while he continues his slow assault on Kise’s lips Aomine’s right hand begins to carefully prepare him, a single finger slipping gently inside. Kise grinds his hips up into the movement, begs for more and receives a second finger and then shortly thereafter, a third. He’s kissing Aomine like time is running away from them, like the sun is about to lift over the mountains in the distance and bathe them in the glowing reminder that this night is going to be over before either of them knows it, before Kise can do all of the things he’d never thought he’d actually have the chance to do with Aomine.

Kise pulls back from Aomine’s lips only to lean forward and playfully nudge the tip of his patrician nose against the straight barbell in Aomine’s eyebrow. He kisses his way down Aomine’s cheek until he’s sucking on the hinge of his jaw, moving quickly to the side of his neck and biting hard enough to break skin. Aomine hisses and his fingers move a little more adamantly, shifting from a gentle probe to an insistent thrusting rhythm that has Kise wanting to simultaneously push away and pull Aomine closer, his body moving unconsciously as his mind becomes a mantra of nothing but breathy incantations.

Kise bites lightly at the bruising skin, licking it to settle the sting while he listens to Aomine’s breath huffing unevenly by his ear. He presses his temple to Kise’s as he slides his hand away, bringing wet hot fingers to rest on the outside of Kise’s thigh, every line of his body warning Kise that Aomine can’t hold off any longer. Kise wants to say  _finally_  and roll his eyes and maybe give Aomine a hard time for taking so long—even though Kise finds it incredibly endearing that rough-and-tough Aomine had taken the time to meticulously stretch and prepare Kise before actually fucking him—but then Kise can feel the head of Aomine’s cock and there is no hesitation, not a single flicker of pause.

Aomine pushes all the way inside with a low, lasting groan. Kise’s head falls back and away from Aomine’s neck, his own throat closing around a groan. Aomine is panting, staring down with eyes aflame and so intense Kise feels his inner muscles clench, watches the resulting reaction in Aomine’s expression as he  _feels_  it, the way his lips turn down in a tested scowl and his eyes become heavy and half-lidded, his brows pressing together in concentration.

“Okay?” he grits, trying his best to be well mannered even as sweat begins to bead at his hairline and his shoulders start to tremble. His chest is resting against Kise’s, his elbows supporting him beside Kise’s head as the tips of their noses touch. Kise skims the tip of his nose against Aomine’s, just once, a playfully intimate gesture, and nods his head.

Aomine pulls his hips back with a slowness that leaves Kise feeling  _everything_ , his hands rising from their clenched positions in the fabric of Aomine’s bed to dig into Aomine’s shoulder blades, his nails leaving crescent reminders behind for the morning. Aomine hums appreciatively, dipping down to lick at the underside of Kise’s upper lip before biting down and tugging slightly, their panting breaths intermingling hotly. Even after so much time, Aomine still tastes like Gatorade, like the early morning of the first day of summer when the air is heavy and sweat slicks your skin, a salty treat lacing your upper lip. Kise wonders how Aomine is interpreting  _his_  taste, if he’s even conscious enough of it to realize that Kise has a taste at all, or if he’s so totally focused on the pounding rhythm of his hips as he slams relentlessly into the cradle of Kise’s groin that thinking is the last thing on his mind right now.

“Yes, yes,  _fuck_  yes,” Kise groans, sliding back and forth over Aomine’s cotton sheets with every thrust. Aomine’s right hand lifts from the sheets and moves down to grab Kise’s ass and tug him even closer, making sure that Kise’s hips come forward to meet Aomine’s every resulting thrust. Kise chokes on a moan, the pitch of it coming out far higher than he’d intended, making his cheeks flush even darker. Aomine is still balancing his body weight on his left elbow even as his left hand moves up to card through Kise’s hair and hold on to it like an anchor as his eyes slip shut and his pace quickens.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he curses, bending his head down to press his forehead to Kise’s left temple, each jarring movement coming from his hips pushing him closer and closer to Kise until there seems to be no space between them at all anymore. Kise’s heart is setting a hummingbird pace within the cage of his ribs, pattering away, his eyes dilating as Aomine lifts his head and his chin, so enthralled with the pleasure of being inside of Kise that he can barely keep his eyes open.

“Look at me,” Kise whispers, every syllable broken by the jarring of his body. Aomine’s eyes open instantly, so deep and bright and blue Kise instantly pictures the deep sea and wonders if Aomine is afraid of the depths, if he’s ever seen fireworks reflected in the surface of the ocean, if he’s ever looked at the magic of iridescent waves overturning and reaching endlessly for the shore and realized how small he is, how small they all are, and felt humbled.

Kise looks into Aomine’s eyes and feels the tides pulling him back to shore—he feels incandescent.

He slides his hands down the muscular length of Aomine’s back, nails dragging light enough to make Aomine jerk before Kise’s brings them right back up and wraps them around Aomine’s neck, hugging him close. He can tell from the way that Aomine’s rhythm is disintegrating and his hips are jolting sporadically that he’s close, so close, and Kise feels wonder at the fact that he isn’t going to be the first to come. He, who has been interested in Aomine since the moment he’d laid eyes on him—since he’d seen his lazy confidence in his terrible old-man loafers and poor fashion sense, covered in magnificently inked art and glaring at Kise like a piece of garbage had blown into his shop—and yet it is Aomine who is reeling in the pleasure, unable to find solid ground when he’s so wrapped up in Kise’s body and heart and soul.

Kise wonders if Aomine looks at him and feels like he’s being pulled underwater, or brought back to shore.

“Close,” Aomine grunts into his ear, lips touching his ear lobe clumsily before he turns to press his lips against Kise’s, almost desperate. Both of their lips are swollen from all of the kissing and the biting, each trying to press closer as Aomine finally hits his peak and groans into Kise’s mouth with a few disjointed thrusts more powerful than those prior, his slick skin sliding over Kise’s before he stills and holds himself tucked away into the warmth of Kise’s body. Kise unwraps his arms from Aomine’s neck to card his fingers through his short dark hair, the repetitive movement soothing Aomine even more as his tense muscles unclench and he falls inertly atop Kise’s body, pushing a huff right out of Kise’s mouth and grumbling an exhausted apology for it.

He only lays that way for a few moments at most, letting Kise continue to run his fingers over his head and through his hair, trying to get a handle on his hummingbird heartbeat and the way Aomine’s body is pressing Kise’s cock down against his navel. Aomine is more than aware that Kise is slowly edging away from the precipice Aomine had brought him to, that neither he nor Aomine has touched his cock the entire time that Aomine has been inside of him. Aomine seems intent on making up for it, though, still completely nestled inside Kise’s body even as he lifts up and wraps one of his magnificent hands around the base of Kise’s cock and begins to pump.

Kise nearly comes off the bed, his back bowing up and his hips lurching forwards. Aomine has strong hands, deft fingers, and just the thought of having his hands on the most private part of Kise makes him harden even more. Aomine watches every expression on his face, his eyes clearer now that he’s come and is able to focus entirely on Kise and his impending orgasm; he drinks it all in and even goes so far as to lick his lips when Kise bites down on his lower lip and whimpers.

“Ah!” Kise cries, fisting the sheets at his sides when Aomine runs his thumb over his slit, smearing a single pearly drop of precome across the head of his penis. Still pumping his hand, Aomine pulls out of Kise’s body and ignores the dejected groan Kise emits as he positions himself sloppily in-between Kise’s legs so that he's closer and has better reach. Aomine’s fingers squeeze a margin tighter and turn Kise’s doleful groan into a high-pitched keening that has Aomine grinning like a  _winner_.

Aomine’s hand is so big that he doesn’t even need to use his other hand to cover the base of Kise’s cock; his pointer and thumb nestle perfectly against the underside of the head, causing indescribable friction that ultimately sends Kise over the edge, his vision shattering into a kaleidoscope of colors, all bright and so blinding he finds himself squeezing his eyes shut as he cries out Aomine’s name, twisting his head to the side to push his nose into Aomine’s pillow as he comes.

The waves of pleasure ripple through him so powerfully he doesn’t even realize he’s smiling through his last moan, pushing his hips and his cock up closer to Aomine as he holds firm. Kise relaxes instantly into the cushion of Aomine’s bed, humming lowly in lingering pleasure before opening his eyes and looking at Aomine from under his lashes. He holds his breath as he watches Aomine lift his right hand up to his mouth and lick the smear of Kise’s come from his fingers, never taking his eyes from Kise’s for a second. Kise’s heart stutters in his chest, his abdominal muscles clenching as his eyes dilate even more.

“Sexy,” Kise whispers, cheeks flushed. “ _So_  sexy.”

“You’re to talk, idiot,” Aomine responds, smirking as he pushes up on to his knees and runs his hands along Kise’s hips and sides, deliberately avoiding the spread of Kise’s own come splattered around his navel and abdomen. Kise feels new heat fill his cheeks as he turns fully to face Aomine’s smirking expression, his eyes heavy now with exhaustion but still moonlight on ocean surface bright. When he figures that he’s embarrassed Kise enough for the night, he dips his head down and licks along Kise's abdomen. Kise laughs, feeling high on the exhilaration and happiness of what they have just done, what they are  _doing_ , and wondering if there will ever be a moment in the future that could top this feeling of exultation.

“Are you going to lick me clean like a cat, Aominecchi?” he jokes, eyes shining as he lifts Aomine’s chin and smiles adoringly down at him. Aomine’s lips quirk, wet and gleaming.

“I’d like to,” he admits, nonchalant about it; which is enough to get another surprised laugh out of Kise. Aomine watches the way Kise’s eyes crinkle at the corners, the way his smile lights up every inch of his face, and feels his heart pick up its pace in his chest. Whenever he looks at Kise he feels like he’s staring into the approaching sun, feeling at first a light burn on his skin that deepens and slips beneath the surface to become wildfire in his veins, lacing every pump of his heart with the burning reminder of how bright Kise Ryouta is—and how deeply rooted in Aomine’s life.

“Hm,” Kise hums, bringing a hand up to once again card his fingers through Aomine’s short hair, a gesture that Aomine cannot disassociate from his mother, something tender and loving that she used to do for him when he was small and young and too troubled to straighten himself out. He feels the slow, heavy way his breath slips through his teeth and turns his head to kiss the inside of Kise’s wrist, feeling unexpectedly tender. When he turns back to the blond, they’re both smiling lopsidedly with eyes half-lidded in pleasure.

“I should probably clean you up,” Aomine slides off of Kise’s body as he speaks, letting his fingers trail lightly along Kise’s skin until they reach his knees and slide away. He walks out of the room and Kise watches the way the moonlight touches his firm ass, smirking when Aomine glances over his shoulder with a raised brow and a scowl, like he  _knows_  Kise is ogling him, which, if Kise is to judge, is pretty damn predictable.

“Hate to see you leave, love to watch you go!” Kise chirps as Aomine disappears around the doorway, heading down the short hall to where Kise expects the bathroom to be.

“You’re so embarrassing,” Aomine calls from the other room, sounding amused. Kise brings his hands up to slip them beneath his head, lacing his fingers together and taking a munificent breath in, grinning uncontrollably. Everything around him smells of Aomine—which is a little bit sour with too much cologne in one corner where Kise is sure a semi-nice outfit is lying crumpled—but all the same, it’s comforting thinking that he probably smells like Aomine now, too.

Aomine walks back through the doorway with a small white towel damp in his hands, crawling back onto the bed and perching comfortably in-between Kise’s legs like he belongs there. He brings the warm towel against Kise’s abdomen and cleans every spot of his body as Kise watches him indulgently from his laid back position.

“Why the fuck am I doing all the work?” Aomine finally realizes somewhere around the last smudge he’s wiping off of Kise’s left nipple, a single sharp eyebrow shooting up questioningly. Kise grins, smug.

“Because I took it up the ass.”

“What, you give it too?” Kise shrugs, watching the way Aomine’s brows both rise in curiosity. He hums musingly, sliding the towel over Kise’s inner thighs one last time before throwing it over his shoulder and into the corner of the room. Kise thinks that’s incredibly disgusting but can’t really find the energy to say so, and besides, it probably isn’t any filthier than some of the other clothes lying on the floor. Unsurprisingly, this thought does not soothe his concerns. Nonetheless, he’s tired and his body feels deliciously heavy, like it’s sinking into the cushion of Aomine’s bed.

Aomine moves like this isn’t the first time they’re sharing a bed, like this isn’t the first time they’re sharing each others’ bodies and warmth and intimacy. He crawls up beside Kise and pulls him onto his side so that his back presses against Aomine’s chest, Aomine’s leg coming up and over his hip to press the length of him to Kise’s heated skin. Kise can feel Aomine’s nose in his hair, sniffing lightly.

“You smell so good,” he mumbles, his breath stirring the hairs around Kise’s ear and tickling him. Kise smirks, nestling his ass against Aomine for a moment as he pretends to get comfortable, the corners of his lips rising even more when Aomine hisses and brings a hand down to hold his hips still.

Kise doesn’t sugarcoat his response, saying; “You probably just think I smell good because you’re used to the stench of dirty laundry mixed with too much Axe spray.”

“The fuck? It doesn’t even smell that bad in here.” Kise’s eyes widen dramatically, even though Aomine can’t see him.

“Oh my God, Aominecchi. If you can barely smell it, that’s a serious problem. I don’t know how Momocchi has let this go on for so long.” Aomine presses his knees up and into the backs of Kise’s, playfully bumping them so as to reprimand him. When he speaks up again, his words are an embarrassed grumble.

“Satsuki doesn’t really come in here very often. Actually, no one really does.”

Kise stays silent, holding back another sassy retort when he realizes that Aomine’s tone is serious and a little self-conscious, telling him that this is something that not many people know about. So instead, he just hums interestedly, nodding his head slightly and yawning. Aomine nuzzles into the back of his neck and mumbles something about Kise moving around too much, his hand sliding from Kise’s hip to his stomach and tightening his hold.

Kise tries to stay awake, he really does; he wants to be conscious for the feeling of Aomine wrapping around him so cozily like this but he is just  _so tired_  that before he can even begin to think about what it means for him to be wrapped up so tightly in Aomine’s embrace, his eyes slip shut and his breathing evens out. The last thing he remembers before slipping completely into unconsciousness is feeling the subtle press of Aomine’s lips against the top of his shoulder, like butterfly wings.  
  
  


✧  
  
  


As it turns out, neither of them had been as exhausted as they’d originally thought—at least, not too exhausted to wake up twice more in order to explore each others’ bodies even more thoroughly than before; once around midnight and again in the early morning hours when the sun tried valiantly to stream in through the thick cover of clouds and the heavy fall of rain.

Kise wakes up for the third and final time when he feels the warmth of Aomine’s body slip away from him, blinking blearily over his shoulder to see Aomine bending over and slipping into a pair of black boxers and straightening up into a long-drawn stretch, hands reaching overhead and turning to face the rain-splattered window. It’s foggy out and the rain is falling in heavy waves that make it difficult to see much more than brief glimpses of neighboring buildings. The sky is a complete cover of angry gray thunderclouds, though Kise is sure that he’s yet to hear any thunder. Then again, he’s now officially, thoroughly exhausted. For real this time.

“Morning,” he sings, hushed but happy. Aomine glances over his shoulder and smiles when Kise rolls over onto his stomach and stretches his entire body, looking very much like a cat.

“Hard to tell,” Aomine responds, pushing a navy-colored curtain aside with the back of his hand to stare out of his window again, pressing his fingertips lightly to the glass and hissing at how cold it is. Kise hops his way out of the bed, shivering at the cold bite of the air against his skin, and begins to search the messy floor scattered with all kinds of clothing until he finds his discarded pair of boxer briefs. He steps into them and shivers again, grabbing Aomine’s blanket from the bed and wrapping himself up like a burrito before heading over to stand bulkily at Aomine’s side, looking out the window with a grin on his face. Aomine glances over at him, snorting.

“Comfy?” he asks in an amused tone, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Quite.” Kise snips, turning his nose up at Aomine’s smug and amused expression.

"What are you smiling about?” Aomine wonders, studying Kise’s expression with a critical eye before his inherent laziness seems to catch back up with him and he gives up on it, turning to look at the infinitesimal impacts of hundreds of raindrops against his bedroom window. Kise glances over at him, smiling wider.

“I actually really love the rain.” He answers, his tone a warm contrast to the chill of the room. “It calms me down. Makes me want to stay at home in my pajamas all day and drink hot chocolate with marshmallows in it, watch silly movies and read a favorite book or something.”

“So you like the rain but won’t go out in it,” Aomine raises a brow, openly criticizing.

“Wrong!” Kise chirps, holding up his pointer finger underneath the puffy blankets even though Aomine can’t see it in all of his bundles.

“I always go out in the rain to get something, even if I don’t need anything. You can’t just  _waste_  a rainy day! Usually I go get some small baked good that I can microwave or something.” At Aomine’s incredulous look, Kise frowns, feeling defensive.

“What? You don’t like the rain? Quit judging me!”

Aomine brings his hands up defensively. “Nah, I like it. I just don’t feel the need to make a big deal out of it like you do.”

“Well,” Kise sniffs, turning back and grinning pointedly at the rainfall. “I’m not sorry for appreciating it. Idiot.”

Aomine feels the muscles above his left eye twitch. “How does that make me an idiot? You’re an idiot!”

Kise turns back to him with amused eyes and a sunshine-bright smile, sticking his tongue out at him. They look back to the window in unison, Aomine crossing his arms again and shivering against the cold while Kise’s smile grows the longer he watches the rainfall. When he notices the chills racing across Aomine’s skin, he hops closer until his massive blanket bundle is partly on top of Aomine’s shoulder and side, offering him the warmth of it. Aomine rolls his eyes at him, amused, but still shrugs closer so that they can share the blanket.

“Got any clients today?” Kise wonders idly, yawning. Aomine nods his head, reaching up with his free hand to scratch absently at the back of his head.

“A few, yeah.” He looks pensive.

Kise hums in response, thinking about his own schedule and the upcoming meeting he has with Kobori later on in the week. He glances over at Aomine again, as sneakily as he can, eyes raking over his bare skin and all of his exposed tattoos and feeling really incredibly special to be able to see all of them out in the open. When he glances down at Aomine’s black underwear and his ink-free legs, Kise worries at his lip, curious.

“Hey,” he begins, his curiosity getting the better of him. “You gonna get tattoos on your legs, too?”

Aomine only pauses long enough to yawn before he says, “Yeah, probably.”

“What about your ass?” Kise holds a laugh in, lips puckering as Aomine turns to him with a raised brow, incredulous.

“I don’t know.” He finally responds, not realizing that Kise is joking. Kise snickers, eyes bright.

“Wanna get a tattoo of my face on your ass?”

Aomine’s response is so quick it almost physically gives Kise whiplash. “I’d rather have your actual face on my ass.”

“I’m not gonna kiss your ass, Aominecchi.” Kise laughs, turning back to the window and bumping his blankets against Aomine playfully. Aomine reciprocates in kind; bumping Kise hard enough that he falls down with a squeal, looking like the Michelin man falling in slow motion. Kise lands with a cushioned bounce and just lays there, bare feet sticking out of the blankets and lips puckering in a pout.

“So rude!” he finally cries, eyes squeezing shut as he rolls onto his stomach and rises back up, still surrounded by every tucked in layer of Aomine’s fluffy blanket. Aomine laughs at him, smooth and husky and so sexy Kise wonders if he’s doing that on  _purpose_. He watches him from the corner of his eyes, studies the upturned quirk of his lips and the gentle gleam to his downcast eyes as he gives the rain one last parting glance before moving back around the bed and slipping into some new clothes.

At least, Kise hopes they are new. They come out of a dresser drawer but given the state of Aomine’s room, Kise isn’t sure that means that they’re clean. He turns away from the taller man to give him a semblance of privacy and also because he’s enjoying the way that he can see the rain splattering against the wet pavement below. He snuggles into his blanket cocoon and lets himself think back over their night together and how thorough and wonderful and  _easy_  it had all been.

Kise has been needlessly pining for  _months_  only to realize that it’s mutual, that Aomine has been oblivious to Kise’s affections and too lazy to do anything about his own feelings until Kise was literally in his lap, drunk and bumbling like a fool. Kise feels nothing more than a persistent twitch of irritation at the matter, though, because any sort of pining that had once existed between them is behind them now.

Kise knows that it isn’t going to be sunshine and rainbows, that even though it has been easy enough to explore each other’s bodies under the shade of night and the glow of the moon, an actual working relationship is still something of a question looming between them. Sudden dread slips into the pit of Kise’s stomach and he begins to doubt, begins to wonder if this is a one time thing for Aomine and he’s now expecting Kise to leave. Or had he expected Kise to be gone by the time he’d woken up? If so, he was sorely mistaken when Kise left the bed even later than Aomine had and then proceeded to steal his blankets as a makeshift cocoon. Kise doesn’t want to feel doubt, doesn’t want to tinge a wonderful night and a playfully lighthearted morning with doubt and concern, but it’s still there, a small dark thing tucked away into the corner of his mind.

He ignores it, deciding instead to focus on the positive as he grins and realizes that banter with Aomine is as easy as breathing.  _Easy_ , he thinks, is a word he seems to use often in order to describe his and Aomine’s relationship. The thought makes him smile even more, his eyes crinkling at the sides as he buries his nose in the blankets and takes in the light scent of them. He is surrounded by Aomine’s smell, so much so that it’s a certainty that even he must smell like him. His heart flutters, charmed.

“You gonna stand there all day or are you gonna make me some breakfast?” Aomine asks from behind him, voice surly but with a distinct affectionate tone that has Kise turning to look at him, unconsciously lifting a hand to tug lightly at his hoop earring. He can’t help the way his heart seems to lift right up into his throat at that tone or the implication of it—that Aomine doesn’t want him to leave—that in fact, he wants him to  _stay_.

“Getting mighty pushy now, aren’t ya?” Kise jokes, eyes flashing over the gray zip-up and ripped dark-wash jeans Aomine has slipped into, his feet bare. He lifts his left leg to itch at his right ankle lazily, shrugging. Upon closer inspection, Kise can see a light flush to his cheeks and the bridge of his nose and realizes that they are talking about  _cooking_ , a topic that Aomine is sour about because of his apparent treacherous nature in the kitchen. Kise could’ve needled him, joked until he was flushed red under that darkly pigmented skin, but instead he deviates and chooses an affectionate tone, blaming it on good morning-after vibes and the bliss of knowing that he can kiss Aomine whenever he wants. Following that thought, he approaches Aomine and presses his lips tenderly to the side of his neck, nipping once before pulling back and smiling brightly.

“First I have to get out of this blanket,” he explains, laughing lightly. Aomine reaches a hand up to scratch at the back of his head, turning to look across the room.

“You can wear one of my sweatshirts.”

“Hm?” Kise hums, already searching the floor for the jacket he’d come to Aomine’s place in, glancing over his shoulder to see Aomine in his closet, pulling a black sweatshirt out and coming back to hold it out for Kise to take. Kise straightens, accepting it with a dazzling smile as he lets the blanket drop around his feet and shoves his hands through the sleeves, preparing to slide if over his head.

“Thanks Aominecchi! I hope it’s clean…”

Aomine scowls. “Shut up. It’s clean.”

Kise laughs, slipping his head through the neck hole and pulling the hood off of his head, straightening the material and frowning slightly when it fits him just a size too big. He’d thought that their builds were closer than that, but then again, maybe Aomine wears the sweatshirt big on purpose. He glances up just in time to see Aomine’s hands moving to his head, his fingers brushing his ruffled hair down and tucking some strands away behind his ears.

“Better,” he grunts, frowning a little. It’s obvious that he’s a little uncomfortable being so obviously doting, but equally apparent that he likes being able to freely touch Kise whenever he wants. Kise may or may swoon.

“Okay!” Kise chirps, clapping his hands together. He’s about to head over to the door when he feels a shiver race down his spine and bring chills up on his legs. His very bare, uncovered legs.

“Pants would probably be a good idea,” Kise laughs, looking up to see matching amusement in Aomine’s blue eyes. He nods, bringing a hand up to rub at his jaw contemplatively. Before long he’s shrugging his heavy shoulders and heading out of the room.

“Pants or no pants, it’s cool.” Aomine’s voice is a taunt sent over his shoulder, his smirk as he turns the corner an added challenge as he heads towards his kitchenette. Kise shakes his head, glad that Aomine can’t see him, and lifts his hands to touch his heated cheeks.

“I’m borrowing a pair of your sweatpants!” he calls down the hall, though he still waits for confirmation before moving to Aomine’s dresser and pulling out a pair of gray sweatpants that  _look_  clean. He slips into them without putting underwear on, the corners of his lips curling higher in an equally challenging smirk. He’s a little hopeful for some sort of encore, regardless of what it entails, so honestly he doesn’t really even think he needs the added layer anyways. The sweats are warm enough as is.

Glancing one last time at the rain falling outside Aomine’s window, Kise grins, running his hands down the smooth material of Aomine’s clothes encompassing his naked body and heads down the hallway to the kitchenette, where he can already hear Aomine cursing. He isn’t sure what Aomine wants to eat or if he even has any ingredients for anything special, but Kise isn’t worried. Aomine lives close to a convenience store and Kise doesn’t mind going out in the rain, and, well, the truth of the matter is simple.

They have all day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (blushes) Happy Valentine's Day! :')


	8. Chapter 8

They talk about James sometimes, mostly when he and Kise have public outings or are recently the hot topic of the media and their faux relationship is right up in Aomine’s face and he can’t ignore it. There’s a little bit of strain there, but Kise understands it. Aomine is a little bit possessive, a fact that several people close to him (with Momoi as the most telling) have told Kise about even before he’d started having alone time with him. He doesn’t like the fact that Kise spends so much time alone with James, but even more than that he doesn’t like the intimacy that James and Kise’s relationship seems to have at face value. There are certain things that happen, that James does for Kise or Kise does for James, that put Aomine on edge—to the extent that for a short period of time he had distanced himself from Kise, not wanting to drag him down with negativity because he  _knows_ why Kise is putting up the pretense of the relationship, but at times he just can’t efficiently hold back how much he dislikes it.

Like the way that a picture of the two of them tucked away into the corner of a barely-known bakery with holes in the cushions and paneling peeling off the walls would appear on the front of the newspaper, or how they were sometimes seen sharing the quiet familiarity of walking down the street together holding hands and once, stopping at a flower shop so that James could purchase a single rose for Kise to hold onto. Aomine had found himself staring at the images with his forehead in his hand and his leg ticking almost anxiously.

But Aomine is more mature than people think and had followed his gut feeling when it led him to confront Kise with his discomfort rather than continue to hide it. Kise had accepted it easily; surprisingly aware and noticeably relieved that Aomine had come to him to admit it, to put it between them so that they could deal with it together. It isn’t all roses and butterflies for Kise, either, though he does enjoy James’s company. He just enjoys Aomine’s far, far more—so much so that there honestly isn’t even a fair comparison. He thinks about Aomine every time he’s with James, which is complicated and exhausting and often makes him a frustrating date, no doubt. James takes all of his awkward silences or lapses in conversation in stride, though, ever aware of his image and the photographers constantly hounding them.

Once Aomine admitted his feelings to Kise, however, things started to change for the better. They discussed what they were comfortable with and what they weren’t, with Kise actively focusing on every expression Aomine offered, intentionally or unintentionally, to ensure that he wouldn’t make the mistake of making Aomine similarly uncomfortable again.

Ultimately, they decide on more public dates, which Kise accomplishes by frequently pulling James to the first table inside the door of the restaurants they visit rather than allowing him to pull Kise into a more private section. Aomine doesn’t mind the public displays of affection, like the time when James had given Kise a rose, though he won’t explain why he doesn’t mind. Kise is pretty sure he just doesn’t want to admit that he  _likes_  when Kise is on the receiving side of compassion, because that would be far too gentle to admit, even for Aomine.

The most pressing topic Aomine brings up is still hanging heavily in the air between them, a fixture neither of them wants but Kise has to enforce: kissing James.

Aomine’s tone is exasperated, edging on a jagged level of frustration. “Can’t people just assume that you guys are kissing? Why do they have to see it?”

“Most people do not concretely believe things until they actually see it, Aominecchi.” He lowers his voice and leans in closer to Aomine, saying, “We don’t want people to realize that this relationship is a sham. And we’ve already come this far; we only have a few more weeks to go before I can end it.”

Kise reaches forward and grasps his steaming hot cup of hot chocolate between both of his hands, letting the heat of it seep through the cup and into his skin. Aomine is sitting forward, leaning on the table with his hands interlaced in front of his mouth, looking strained yet contemplative. He’s already eaten three decadent pastries and has been considering a fourth for the past half hour. As for his drink, well. Kise purses his lips to hold in his laughter as he thinks back to the first few minutes they'd come into the bakery, when Aomine had taken his seat and set his bag beside his feet only to lean down and reach into it. Kise had thought he was going to pull out a sheet of sketch paper, just to write some things down or idly sketch a tattoo idea.

What Kise had not been expecting, however, was for him to pull a blue Gatorade out. He’d been silently incredulous, eyes wide and amused as Aomine blithely uncapped the beverage and downed half of it without stopping to breathe. Then he’d burst out laughing, bringing his hands to his mouth and his forehead down onto the table, shoulders shaking and tears forming. When he’d finally composed himself enough to glance back up, he’d found Aomine giving him a critically assessing look, as if he had lost his mind, which Kise found especially ironic considering. He hadn’t said a word about it, had just grinned at Aomine and ignored the way he glanced suspiciously from his Gatorade to Kise’s hot chocolate.

“How much longer is this thing gonna go?” he finally asks, glancing up over his hands and pinning Kise to the spot. Kise blinks, feeling heat crawl lightly up his neck, a common side effect of being the sole person under Aomine’s intense scrutiny.

“This Friday makes two and a half weeks and a month is the limit.” Aomine slowly sits back in his seat, mouth dropping open into a scowl.

“Shiiit,” he groans, pursing his lips. “That’s gonna feel like forever.”

“Tell me about it.” Kise says, instantly regretting it. Kise is not the one getting the shitty end of the stick here; he has no right to complain. Not like Aomine does. In any case, Aomine doesn’t seem to mind the complaint. Instead, he seems far more concerned with the potential progression of Kise and James’s faux relationship.

“If you want to be kissing this guy when it’s only been two weeks, what’s gonna happen on week three? Or week four?”

“Okay first off, I do not  _want_  to kiss him. Secondly, his name is James. He is a person and does deserve the respect of being spoken about as such, I think.” Aomine merely grumbles, stubborn and silently pouting, eyes half-mast.

“And if you’re implying that our pattern means we’ll be doing more than kissing by weeks three and four, you’re wrong. I’ve already discussed it with James. Kissing is the limit.”

“I still don’t like it.” Aomine sighs, shaking his head. “This is so shitty. I need another pastry.”

“I know,” Kise agrees sympathetically, wilting a little. “I’m sorry. Let me get your pastry.”

“Nah,” Aomine interjects lazily as Kise makes to stand. “I’ve got it. Just because you bathe in money doesn’t mean I can’t afford my own damn bread.”

He winks as he gets up from his chair, softening the playful slight. Kise huffs.

“You know I don’t bathe in money. That’s directly contradictory. Money is filthy.”

Aomine rolls his eyes. “Only the  _filthy_  rich would say so.”

“Was that a pun?” Kise’s eyes grow wide, his lips pulling up into a smile he can’t contain. “I’ve never heard you make a pun before.”

Aomine smirks, straightening his white shirt and rubbing some crumbs off of his dark wash blue jeans.

“There’s a lot you still gotta learn about the awesomeness that is Aomine Daiki.” To add flare to the comment, Aomine points back at himself with both thumbs and smirks. Kise winces, snorting.

“Aominecchi, that was so lame!” He holds his stomach as he laughs, watching Aomine’s smug smirk fall into his signature scowl. He waves a hand dismissively in Kise’s direction and turns to head to the counter.

“Whatever.” He grunts, shoving his hands into his pockets and heading off.

Kise watches him walk off, smile relaxing ever so slightly as he watches Aomine lean sloppily against the counter, touching the glass case of the pastries and getting his dirty fingerprints all over it. The cashier is watching his fingers too, scowling at what is undoubtedly going to be her duty to clean up. Kise finds himself shaking his head indulgently as he turns back to his hot chocolate, eyes landing on Aomine’s empty Gatorade bottle.

They’d come to this bakery specifically because it’s so run-down and unheard of, to deliberately stay out of the public’s eye and the crosshairs of any wandering reporters. It won’t do for Kise to be seen with another man, most especially Aomine, who he absolutely cannot shield his love and affection for, when he is supposed to be dating James. An infidelity scandal would harm both him and James, and he isn’t willing to let that happen. But they’ve been spending all of their alone time together in Aomine’s apartment or Kise’s hotel room, shut in and slowly growing tired of their own home-cooked meals.

Aomine had expressed a craving for pastries and Kise had been more than willing to savor another hot chocolate to fend off the whip of cold air that greets them every day now that it is finally winter. Kise is bundled up with only the skin of his hands, neck, and face showing, and yet even still he’s shivering. Aomine had noticed the shivering early on and had thrown his own leather jacket at him without a word, ostensibly uncaring that now he only has a plain white shirt to wield off the cold, though he does have a blue beanie on over his short hair. Kise had tried to refuse, to return the jacket, but Aomine is as stubborn as a mule and had refused in turn, claiming that he’s used to the cold. Kise called bullshit, but took the jacket anyways, feeling both charmed to be able to wear Aomine’s jacket in public and in as simple a statement as he can make it? Loved. He feels loved.

Aomine comes back with two pastries, which has Kise raising a single delicate eyebrow before Aomine slides one his way, already biting into his own Bear Claw. Kise picks up his Lemon Bar and bites into it, eyes slipping closed as the flavor floods his senses.

“So good!” he sighs happily, opening his eyes to see that Aomine has that same smug expression on his face, the one that makes his eyes bright and his shoulders set almost on edge. He finishes his Bear Claw in record time, sitting back and resting his hands over his stomach, which is a slight bulge now that he’s pounded down several pastries without much space in-between to start digesting them.

“I need another Gatorade,” he says, nodding to himself in a way that Kise immediately understands as meaning they’re going to have stop by the convenience store on the way back to Aomine’s apartment.

“Maybe a water might be better,” Kise suggests, trying to be open-minded. Aomine shuts him down with a look.

“We have to go over this one last time before we head back and I destroy you at Mario Kart.” Aomine says abruptly, sitting forward again and staring into Kise’s eyes as he finishes his dessert. He nods slowly, accepting.

“About two more weeks, public dates where everyone can see you guys and none of that tucked-away-into-dark-corners business. And absolutely no more than kissing.”

“Agreed.” Kise answers, nodding his head once with finality. Aomine watches him carefully for a few seconds before nodding his head and leaning back in his seat, grinning. He crosses his arms over his muscled chest and Kise can see chills making his arm hairs stand on end. His eyes narrow, jumping back to the proud expression on Aomine’s face.

He’s about to reprimand Aomine about handing his coat over when he  _clearly_  needs it for himself, but Aomine’s smirk makes him pause. Sharp blue eyes narrow and his lips pull back to show teeth.

“I’m gonna kiss the complete shit out of you when you finally get rid of this bozo.”

Heart pattering in excitement and hands fisting in the material of his jacket lest Aomine see them quiver, he tries to pretend like he’s not utterly shaken by that assertion. Like Aomine casually saying that he cannot wait to kiss the living daylights out of Kise is something that doesn’t make Kise want to find a private place for the two of them  _immediately_.

“James, his name is  _James_.” Kise insists, rolling his eyes and glancing out the window nervously before turning back to Aomine because he can’t miss the look that settles in those sharp eyes once he realizes that Kise is blushing, that his coarse remark excites Kise in ways he probably should’ve been able to conceal better.

“And you’re going to have to wait a bit afterwards, after the break up, to do that. How would it look for me to be making out with a new guy the day after I break up with James?”

“It’ll look like you’re  _mine_  and that we don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks because we’re so fucking into each other that we could be fined for public indecency simply by walking around together.”

Kise feels his cheeks and the bridge of his nose heat under his blush, but this time he doesn’t glance away, keeps Aomine’s intense gaze and stares down the promises gleaming like stars in a blanket of the ocean’s depths in his eyes; he creates a few of his own, too, a wildfire burning around the edges of his pupils, shooting sparks. Reciprocating.

“We’ll see,” he whispers, voice low and rasping. Aomine responds with a grin, wide and animated.

“You  _know_  I love a good challenge.” He says, and Kise nods before finishing off his hot chocolate and smiling playfully at Aomine from across the table. He knows that Aomine will deliver, that he truly doesn’t care what anyone else thinks and that he’d be completely fine with kissing Kise until he feels like he’s dissolving right there in front of the entire world so long as Kise permits it. Knowing that,  _knowing_  it, makes Kise happy enough that he wonders if his lips have ever really even known how to smile before he’d met Aomine. He has smiled most of his life, but never like he does when he’s around Aomine, like the sun rises and sets around the two of them and their hearts beat together in harmony.

Kise will be able to hold him off for two weeks, maybe even three, after the break-up with James—at least publically. He’s confident in at least three days between the break up and the first private kiss outside of Kise’s faux relationship and the media’s grasp. Aomine is an inexorable force, quite like a storm, and he’s used to getting his way and doing whatever he wants because he’s powerful. But Kise is a capable challenger, someone who is equally as strong and stormy, someone who can make Aomine  _work_  for it. He isn’t about to lie down and expose his belly at any given moment, regardless of how much he loves the man. Especially because he loves him.

Kise shrugs, the happiness bubbling up inside of him veiled behind the casual shrug of his heavy shoulders, the lilting tone of his voice, the effortless smile that graces his features. “We’ll see if you feel the same way after I whoop your ass at Mario Kart tonight.”

Aomine’s heated expression doesn’t dull, but it changes. It becomes more of a challenging flame flickering in the wind and less of a wildfire dancing across the surface of the tempestuous ocean, his confidence shining through like a flare. Kise feels his heart pounding in his chest, can feel it especially in his wrists as he reaches down to grab his bag and lift himself from his chair, intent on getting home so that they can challenge each other to a good old game of Mario Kart.

Or perhaps, a game of a different sort.  
  


  
✧  
  
  


If he’s being honest, Kise has almost completely forgotten about his tattoo-in-progress. Aomine hasn’t mentioned it and Kise spends all of his time going out in public with James and coming home to get intimate with Aomine. He hasn’t seen much of Momoi lately, either, which is a fact he’s already working on fixing. He’s just so busy it’s hard to make time for anyone other than Aomine, since making time with James is mandatory and he only has so much free time. When he isn’t with James, he’s with Aomine, and when he isn’t with either of them, he’s working or going to meetings or planning his future outings with Kobori.

And he is  _happy_. It’s impossible to ignore; it’s in every line of his body, the gentle lift and fall of his shoulders when he laughs, the mirth in his amber eyes, the constant soft grin his mouth curls up into. His skin is even clearer than usual, though he wouldn’t go so far as to agree with Kobori when he says that Kise is practically  _glowing_.

So much in his life has been going well for so long that he’d forgotten about his worries, both at present and looming ahead of him. He’s too focused on his work, on both of his relationships, faux and real—there’s no time for him to be negative or worrisome. Even if he hadn’t forgotten about them, he still wouldn’t have wanted to taint his newfound impervious optimism and positivity with paltry fears. So instead, he stays blissfully ignorant of any potential drawbacks or hurdles that he and Aomine will have to cross in the future and focuses on how happy he is.

Perhaps that is why Kise is caught so utterly off-guard when everything finally goes to hell.

It starts with James.

He asks Kise out to one of their favorite restaurants, nothing out of the ordinary, and Kise agrees to meet him that evening. Knowing the atmosphere of the restaurant, Kise decides that he might as well dress up a little to best fit in. Nothing too fancy, no suit and tie, just a nice pair of blue jeans and a white collared shirt and navy sweater combination that Kise thinks makes him look a little studious. It reminds him of the rough years when he’d forced himself to go to college and get his degree whilst maintaining his full-time modeling career, something that Kobori had been hesitantly supportive of but which worried him nonetheless. It had been difficult, and long, and draining, but Kise is proud of himself for having soldiered his way through it. He has his Sociology degree framed and hanging in his apartment back home in Tokyo to show for his struggles, a reminder that he is both free to choose his own path and strong enough to follow through with it.

The restaurant is busier than Kise had expected, even for a Friday night. He’d had to carefully maneuver through the crowd, stopping to sign a few autographs and take a few pictures which had then increased the chaos inside the building because everyone had wanted to know what famous person was there and how they could talk to or see him. Kise was perfectly mannered, smiling and laughing with fans before mentioning that he is actually on a date. The crowd jittered around him, those who knew of his relationship looking excitedly around for James and finding him leaning against the bar, smiling warmly at Kise through the crowd.

After the initial uproar over his presence and then the reveal of his date, after everything settles to a tolerable level and no one is trying to talk to him personally, he and James sit through a wonderful dinner. They talk as fluidly as they always have, with no disconnects and only a small amount of disturbances. James has a few drinks, all of which are far fruitier than Kise had expected of him, and is still only on the edge of tipsy. His beautiful green eyes are a little brighter, a little glassier than Kise is used to seeing, but his words are still clear and concise and his gestures graceful and smooth. If Kise hadn’t been watching him imbibe drink after drink, he would have never even known that James isn’t sober, even with his watchful eyes.

Kise spends the majority of the night wondering at people with high tolerances for alcohol and what that must be like, smiling and sharing stories with James like they always do. Kise is more aware of the cameras snapping their pictures than ever, leaning closer to James on the table and cocking his head to the side in as cute a manner as he can manage, as though he’s telling James all of his secrets.

“I haven’t washed my hair in five days,” is what he actually says, making James huff out a laugh and shake his head, smiling affectionately at Kise. Kise bobs his shoulders up once, playfully, before sitting back in his seat. When the waitress comes by and asks if he wants another Lemon Drop, he refuses. James has had enough drinks for the both of them, though he is still far from drunk, which is always going to be fascinating to Kise.

He’s just about to pose a question about tolerance when James’s hand reaches out across the table and covers Kise’s, his bright green eyes pinning Kise to the spot. A little startled but used to the contact, since they’re constantly holding hands, Kise tilts his head wonderingly at him.

“You okay?” he asks, concerned. James nods his head, eyes half-lidded.

“Just want the contact.” He responds. 

Kise frowns, a small thing, and studies James’s expression with a slightly more critical eye. As an explanation, James’s response is a poor one—it only makes Kise want to reiterate his question, to ask if something had happened to make James seek out human contact. It doesn’t occur to him yet that James doesn’t just want to touch anyone, but that Kise is the sole object of his focus. A minor slip-up that Kise usually would’ve noticed if he hadn’t gotten distracted by the way that James is rubbing his thumb carefully over the skin of Kise’s wrist. The gesture feels intimate, private, far more so than any of the times they’ve walked around holding hands or put an arm around one another. Kise hears the slow, quiet hum of warning bells in his mind and ignores them in lieu of figuring out what’s different about James, a terribly foolish thing to do.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he finally asks, needing to reiterate the sentiment. Instead of nodding again, or deflecting, James simply stares at him, traces the features of his face with his gorgeous eyes.

“You really are beautiful,” he finally says, and Kise’s eyes widen, startled. After a moment of pause in which he remembers how many cameras are currently on them, he laughs it off, jovial and playfully abashed, waving a hand. But James isn’t amused, every line of him drawn up with sincerity, his eyes cast in a gleam of resolve that renews the warning bells in Kise’s mind, in his ears. He moves to carefully pull his hand back across the table, his smile veiling his growing worry. The waitress comes by again and James takes the moment to order another drink, this time one that’s a little stronger with less fruit and more alcohol. Kise swallows, smiling at the waitress and then glancing at James as he stands form his seat.

“Excuse me for a bit,” he whispers behind his hand, blinking as he heads towards the restrooms. He weaves through the crowd without much fuss, deflating the moment he turns down the hallway leading to the men’s restrooms, out of sight from anyone in the restaurant. He brings a shaky hand up to tuck some of his hair behind his ear, worrying his lower lip while his thoughts race for coherency.

James likes him.  _Actually_  likes him. He is taking this artificial relationship of theirs seriously, which means that it’s real, that if Kise stays he will be cheating on Aomine, that it is no longer a viable option for him to continue with this farce now that James has taken it a step further. He’s known from the beginning, ever since Kobori’s warning, that James is interested in him. What he hasn’t known, what he hasn’t been expecting, is for James to move in on those feelings of interest and attempt to take them to the next level regardless of the contract they’d both signed.

Taking in a shaky breath, he reaches into his pocket and dials Aomine’s number without even really thinking about it, bringing his phone to his ear and closing his eyes as his back rests against the hallway wall, his head bowing with strain. Subconsciously, he knows that he just wants to hear Aomine’s voice, to let the deep timbre of it sooth his frazzled nerves.

“Yo,” Aomine answers, sounding very much like he’s either been napping or is in the process of doing something he really would’ve rather not had interrupted. So, Kise thinks affectionately, he sounds the same as always.

“Aominecchi,” Kise greets, a little breathily. He reaches up and tucks some hair that had fallen back into his face behind his ear, saying, “I just wanted to say hi.”

“Ah,” he hums, and Kise can hear the scratchy sound of Aomine’s sketching pen on paper. His body warms from his heart outwards at the fact that he knows that he’d been right, that he  _knows_  Aomine had been sitting at his station in The Zone, sketching some new masterpiece that will one day be a permanent fixture on someone’s body. He’s so familiar with the sound he can even smell the ink, can picture the way that Aomine’s right shoulder will be hitched a little higher than his left because he sketches a little lopsidedly, and Kise sighs.

“You’re busy,” Kise assumes, nodding his head. “I’ll let you get back to it.”

“That’s it?” Aomine questions, gruff. Kise hums in answer, listening to Aomine’s husky laugh come over the line and knowing that he’s shaking his head.

“You’re so weird, Kise.”

“So rude!” Kise whines, bringing a hand up to clutch at the material over his heart, trying in vain to make it slow its pace lest it exhaust itself and tire out right then and there. It’s still a rare thing to hear his name come from Aomine’s lips, to hear the low and gravelly tone wrap around it and make it music where it was once just notes.

“Take care, Aominecchi,” he brings the phone away from his ear and grins at the screen as Aomine hangs up first. He hears the scuff of someone’s shoes and looks up to see James turning down the hallway, his pace slow and smooth. His hands are tucked into his jean pockets and his lips gleam under the dim lighting.

“Was that Aomine?” he asks quietly, watching the shock spread over Kise’s face. It takes him a moment to compose himself before he nods, watching James’s reaction. He studies Kise’s eyes, his cheeks, and Kise knows he can see how flushed they are. He doesn’t say anything after that but the gloom permeating around him is almost tangible. Kise meets him halfway, a shadow of his earlier grin on his face as he gestures for them to return to their table. He steps past James and is just beginning to contemplate how they’re going to get out of this mess when he feels James’s hand on his wrist, feels himself turning with the pull, and then James is kissing him.

It’s not their first kiss, not by far, but there’s something different about it that nails in the final touches to the coffin of this faux relationship between them, something that feels like  _more_ , like love. James presses Kise against the wall, just inside the lip of the hallway where countless patrons are eating and drinking and being merry. Should any of the ones closer to them simply look their way, they will have a clear view of them kissing, of James sliding a hand up Kise’s chest to cup the side of his neck, of the way his eyes are closed almost painfully shut in concentration. Kise can taste his last drink on his breath, the sour taste of whiskey, and it feels wrong. The hands on his skin, the sharp hipbones pressing into his own, the almost desperate chase of lips over the line of his jaw.

It’s all wrong.

“James, stop.” Kise lifts his hands and pushes, holding back much of his strength because he doesn’t dislike James, doesn’t want to hurt him. He stumbles back, panting, staring heatedly into Kise’s eyes as the blond lifts a hand to wipe at his mouth. He’s breathing hard himself, but it’s more the shock of being taken advantage of than anything else. It’s also the frustration, bone-deep and alive in him, of James throwing a wrench into all of their plans. He wants to be angry at James, wants to leave a wound and let it smart, but his glassy eyes—so green, so bright—they belong on a man that isn't exactly himself, that thinks he has nothing left to lose.

And if Kise's intuition is right, then James's only fault here is that he has fallen in love with someone who is already in love with someone else. There is no decent reason for Kise to be angry at him over his feelings, at wanting to be close to the person he loves, at wanting to touch and kiss and hold him. But Kise is as loyal as the ocean is deep, and he refuses to lead James on, but even more than that, he refuses to allow something that is entirely made-up for public gain to harm the person he cares about most in the world.

Kise runs a hand shakily through his hair and tries to settle his racing pulse, gritting his teeth against the words he still wants to lash out with, dripping sour and vile down his throat. He takes a deep breath and releases some of the tension in his body, feels his mind clear, his eyes opening to focus on James with no animosity.

“I think we should head out now,” he whispers, gesturing for James to follow him. He doesn’t wait to see if James agrees, if he’ll nod and take the same steps that Kise does, but when they make it back to their table and Kise hands his card over to their waitress for the bill, James is at his shoulder, tall and silent. They make their way outside without struggle, with Kise waving and calling out goodbyes to those who precede him and James remaining glaringly silent, even when fans of his own call out to him.

Once outside, Kise leads them over to the edge of the sidewalk where there are no streetlights overhead, a position cast in shadows and hard to efficiently capture with a camera. The wind has picked up since they’ve gotten there, blowing down their spines and bringing up chills.

“Okay James, now is the time you really need to be honest with me.” Kise turns to him with arms crossed and expression set, but he can’t help but soften the line of his mouth at his friend, not when he knows that James is experiencing an unrequited love in a situation that permits a vague sense of hope to him where there truly is none.

“That guy,” James abruptly says, turning his head to glare into the street at a passing car. He bites down on his lip for just a moment, turning back to Kise and studying his eyes before looking down at the ground.

He continues on in an ostensibly stubborn tone, aided by all of the alcohol he had consumed; “The one on the phone. I don’t like it.”

The warning bells are blaring now, unable to be ignored. Kise frowns, shaking his head and digging his fingers into his biceps.

“No,” he says, low and final. “You’re not doing this.”

“What am I not doing?” James snaps, a little mocking. If Kise was any less observant of the details, he might’ve missed the way James’s words slur just the slightest bit, the first and only noticeable sign that the alcohol is affecting James more than Kise had originally thought. Kise moves closer to him, lowering his voice and throwing a hand out to the side.

When he speaks his voice is stern, his eyes unflinching. “We agreed that this was a one-time thing. That it was just for  _publicity_.”

“Things have changed.” James’s voice is as final as Kise’s, unwilling to budge. He stands tall, confident, even though his eyes are still half-lidded from the alcohol, the second noticeable sign that he is operating with a little extra courage in his veins. His voice drops, becomes quieter, and Kise feels it stab right through him.

“I want you.”

And there it is, out in the open; dropping between them heavy and unyielding like a stone. Kise feels his shoulders sag, his body deflating with a heavy exhale.

“I’m sorry, James. I don’t feel the same.” He holds James’s gaze, doesn’t want there to be a hint of misunderstanding about where Kise’s affections are. Kise isn’t sure what he had been expecting, can’t really get a good enough read on James’s current mood, so he doesn’t know whether to brace for an outburst or settle in for an argument. As it turns out, he needn’t have worried about either. They stare at each other for a long moment, Kise shivering a little in the cold and James working the muscles of his jaw. Finally, he glances away, breaking their eye contact and bringing his own arms up to cross over his chest, burrowing further into his sweater. A stubborn expression settles over his features as gradually and as seamlessly as the changing of seasons, but remains there, harsh and carved as if in stone.

“I won’t,” He whispers, still looking down the length of the street, staring at distant streetlights, now seeming to glow in the foggy air. He seems to contemplate something internally for a moment as Kise watches, turning back to amber eyes with a newfound determination that has tension building along Kise’s neck.

“I won’t just give up on you. My feelings for you are valid.”

Kise studies the lines of his face, the stubborn gleam in his eyes and the tension around his mouth. He knows without any further explanation that James is utterly serious about this, at least at this very moment, and that because of that Kise is probably going to have to make several key changes to their relationship. James’s feelings are indeed valid and they may even be real, but all the same: they are unacceptable. Not only because they are for someone who will not return them and is in fact loyal to someone else, but also because they are unacceptable to the parameters of their professional relationship. They had both signed the documents, agreed to a short artificial relationship that would go no further than what is outlined for them unless both parties voluntarily agreed to it. They only have a little over a week left, but that’s enough time for James to do something incredibly foolish that can put them both into jeopardizing situations.

He’s about to try to remind James of their contract, of what they have legally  _agreed_  upon, when a flash of light interrupts him. Blinking, he glances over James’s shoulder and sees a trio of reporters that have followed them outside and found them, bustling close and snapping a few photos before they begin to ask their questions.

“You guys have a nice dinner tonight?”

“What’s next for you two? Where’s your next date going to be?”

“Are you guys really dating? You don’t look very lovey-dovey at all!”

“Come on, kiss him, hug him, do something!”

Kise  _just_  manages to keep his eye from twitching in irritation, both at their insistent questions and their terrible timing, when James steps closer to him and wraps an arm around his waist, bringing him close enough that he is wrapped up in the warmth and the subtle smell of him. James smiles, his green eyes bright and ethereal in the flashes of their cameras, playfully bumping into Kise’s side.

“Aw, come on. Cut us some slack! We can’t always be making out everywhere we go,” he laughs, pressing his fingers lightly into Kise’s side as a reminder that they are being filmed. As if he even needs the reminder. Kise smiles at the men still asking them questions and now also throwing small taunts into the mix, fishing around for anything that he can say to politely ward them off.

“Come on, come on! Give us something!” The cameras continue to flash, the questions continue in pressure and in invasiveness, a snowball effect that irritates Kise enough for him to put a stop to it. They’ve found him in a moment of weakness, when his good graces are in short supply and he doesn’t have the patience to tolerate them with his usual charismatic nature.

“So bossy!” he laughs, just barely managing to pull a playful pout. They snap a few more pictures of him, still calling for some sort of proof that he and James are dating. Kise knows that it’s more than that, though, that they are trying to find a story in their surprising silence, predators smelling the first hints of blood. And if they push hard enough, look closely enough, they’ll find it. Kise and James have not had a single fight for the media to chew over, so it’s no surprise that they’re getting more and more interested in either capturing or creating one.

“It’s not much to ask a dude to kiss his boyfriend, is it?” one of the reporters asks, lightly elbowing his neighbor until he chirps in agreement. Kise sighs, the words that will finally disband them already forming on his tongue, the breath in his lungs building to speak them, when he feels James’s fingers tighten on his waist and bring him closer. It happens so quickly that Kise has no way of escaping it—the hand on his waist, the momentum of his body turning to James’s, the way their lips are perfectly aligned.

James kisses him with feeling, like they hadn’t been arguing just moments before, like Kise hadn’t told him specifically that he holds no romantic feelings for him. The cameras go off like crazy, flashes popping off at them like fireworks as the reporters cheer, capturing as much as they can in the poor lighting.

James pulls back before Kise can, which is both surprising and suspicious and should have been enough to set Kise on James’s train of thought. He turns to face the cameras once more and if Kise had been able to see James’s expression—the determined set of his face, the unwavering line of his gaze—he would’ve cut him off immediately and put himself between James and the reporters with ease. But he doesn’t see his expression, has no clue that James would be so bold as to drop such an important declaration without consulting Kise first, regardless of their disagreement. So instead, Kise watches wide-eyed and blearily as James turns to the reporters and tells them, without preamble, that he is in love with Kise Ryouta.

The reporters say something in response but Kise can’t hear them, can’t take his eyes off of the side of James’s face; cast in shadow and unknowable to him. A bomb had just been dropped and he is ground zero—there is no way he can respond to them with anything other than shocked silence. Fury boils up in his heart and races down the lines of his veins, heating his entire body and spilling a flush over his cheeks, which the reporters immediately mistake as embarrassment from the confession. At their charmed laughter, Kise turns slowly to face them, schooling his features as best as he can to match their impressions of him and grasps James’s bicep in his hand.

“Okay, okay, that’s enough~” he flaps his hand at them graciously, bowing his head slightly before turning with James still in his grasp. He glances over his shoulder and is pleased to see that they don’t follow, probably because what they’ve already received is more than enough to stir up a fine frenzy than anything they might get by continuing to follow the supermodel duo.

“That’s it for tonight then. Take care!” he calls over his shoulder, smiling brightly and walking alongside a noticeably silent James as they approach the street corner, turning and heading in the direction of James’s apartment. Once around the corner and out of the reporters’ sights, Kise rips his hand away from James’s bicep and presses his palms to his eyes, gritting his teeth. This is no time for an outburst or an unruly confrontation, not with so many reporters around them. The confrontation will have to wait, but there is no way that those pictures and that film are going to be absent from some show the next morning. The whole world is going to know that James is apparently in love with Kise in a matter of hours and he’d been so surprised by it all that he isn’t even entirely certain how he’d appeared to respond.

There is conflict there, too, because on the one hand if he looks as angry as he feels, he’ll have to explain why hearing such important words from his boyfriend had incited such a negative reaction. He can deal with that, actually. They _have_  only been together for about a month—it is far too soon for declarations of that magnitude—at least, that’s what he’ll claim. The more pressing conflict, however, is if his expression had appeared abashed, as the reporters had seemed to believe. It is far more difficult to explain embarrassment that could be misconstrued as pleasant surprise since he is not only planning on ending the relationship within a week’s time, but also because there are people out there who will see that clip and second-guess his true feelings. Like everyone in The Zone—like Momoi.

Like Aomine.

Kise doesn’t say anything to James, doesn’t even shake his head discouragingly. He has to think, has to plan and consult Kobori for the sake of their investment in the deal should James stray any further. He has to make an appointment with him, which probably means cancelling one of his meetings the following day, which in turn will put him behind in his work. He runs a shaky hand through his hair again, turning back to the street and hailing a cab without pause. He opens the door and gestures for James to get inside, not even able to look at him, and waits until he slides across the seat to shut the door behind him.

He doesn’t smile or wave, doesn’t offer up any of his usual jovial nature to wish him a good night, too distracted and worried to stay completely focused. James doesn’t say a word either and soon enough his cab is pulling away from the curb and heading towards his apartment. Kise shoves his hands deep into his pockets and looks up into the pitch-black sky, eyes searching through the light clouds and jumping from star to star when he can make them out through the fog.

“Shit.” He whispers, eyes slipping closed as he wraps his fingers around his phone, slipping it out of his pocket and glancing down at it to contact Kobori. He hails another cab without really looking, still focused on composing the text message even as he slides inside and tells the driver his address. Kise keeps the message short and simple, promising a full explanation when they meet face-to-face, and lets his phone slide off of his hand and onto the cushion beside him.

He looks out the window and up into the dark night sky, shivering slightly and wrapping his sweater a little tighter around his body. He watches the lights of the city flash by, blurs of yellows and reds and greens and blues, streetlights and house lights and shop lights—everywhere they pass is lit brightly enough to be impossible to miss. A wave of exhaustion rushes over him then, and he rests his head against the cold window, uncaring of the chill. The cold matches his mood, freezing him in place and keeping him still when everything around him seems to be flying past him, beyond his control.

Kise looks up at the stars and wonders if they ever get tired of being so bright.  
  
  


✧  
  
  


The moment he gets back to his apartment that night, he flings himself onto his bed and passes out without even looking at his phone, exhausted and irritated and off balance. When he wakes up the next morning he’s greeted with exactly what he’s been expecting: his own face on the television screen, being kissed and flushing a deep red when James turns to him and confesses. Kise sits down in front of the screen, a steaming mug of hot tea in his hands, slowly lifting it to his lips and taking a sip even though it burns.

He studies his on-screen expression with a critical eye, shoulders hunching forward in a conflicting cascade of anxiety and relief—he simply looks  _surprised_. There is no way to tell if it’s good surprise or not, especially since he’d kept his composure in front of the reporters, not leaving too quickly or lingering too long in front of their cameras. Several shows are all over the scene, commenting on what it can mean and what Kise might have been thinking at the time, and most pressing of all: what is next for the supermodel duo’s relationship.

Kise leaves soon after, turning the TV off and leaving his half-full mug of tea on the table. He doesn’t look at his phone when he types in Kobori’s number, too hasty to even pay attention to anything else but getting him on the line, then agreeing on a meeting place and the necessity of taking steps towards a new plan. He doesn’t look at his phone again.

By the time he’s hugging Kobori goodbye and walking out of the restaurant after their hastily scheduled meeting, the sun is tucked away behind the mountains and the moon is trying in vain to break through the cloud cover. Light raindrops fall against his skin, encouraging a small smile to inch up and over his face, his eyes flickering over the clouds before he exhales with a sigh. Now that things have settled down a bit and he and Kobori have come up with a plan, Kise feels himself relaxing, the tension in his muscles leaking out like coolants in his system. He pulls his phone out of his pocket without a thought and checks his e-mails, texts, and the few fan websites he interacts with on a weekly basis.

His eyes widen before he can even get past the home screen, zeroing in on a single missed call from Aomine and the lone notification of one pending text message. Immediately he can hear Aomine’s voice from the morning before last telling him that he’d text him later and that he wouldn’t mind if Kise came over that night. Of course, that had been last night and Kise had completely forgotten—too distracted with the moves James had pulled and how Kise was going to get around them. Kise had completely forgotten about Aomine, hadn’t even thought of him once after the phone call he’d made to him in the bathroom hall of the restaurant before things went south.

His heart pushes against his ribcage, a powerful, stuttering thump that has Kise biting his lip and lifting a fist to press over his chest. Has Aomine seen the news? Had he been watching when James kissed him, passionate and with everything he had, and after, when he’d said that he was in love with Kise? Kise glances at the missed call and feels a sense of foreboding. The text message had been sent at 8pm the night before, a simple question:

_u coming over tonight?_

The phone call is from this morning. Kise swallows, heart beginning to race in his chest, his eyes wide. He has to go to Aomine and explain, even if by some small miracle he has not yet seen the footage, Kise still has to explain it all. He moves quickly, hailing a cab and heading for Aomine’s place, unconsciously gnawing on his lip in worry. Things have been going so well with Aomine,  _amazingly_  well. Kise can be found at regular intervals at Aomine’s place, teaching him how to cook and bake and  _clean_. They are painfully domestic, sometimes doing household chores together or snuggling on the couch while watching movies or The Office reruns. But most of the time, they’re teaching each other how to multitask.

Aomine had actually been the one to start it all, the competition of who can multitask better. It starts with Kise showing Aomine one of the simplest and healthiest snacks he knows: Ants on a Log, or celery with peanut butter in the gaps and raisins along the peanut butter. Kise had been meticulously placing raisins equally apart on each stick of celery and explaining how often he eats the snack when he’d felt Aomine sidle up next to him, close.  _Really_  close.

“Hm,” Aomine had hummed disinterestedly as Kise rolled his eyes over at him, continuing with the raisins. He’d ignored the way Aomine that had been rubbing slowly against the side of him, blinking when he felt Aomine bend to kneel at his side and then swallowing heavily when Aomine slid in-between the kitchen cabinets and Kise’s legs, his face poised very close to Kise’s crotch.

“What are you doing?” He’d asked, hands pausing their ministrations to glance down at a positively  _beaming_  Aomine. He’d only shook his head, bringing his hands up to rest on the backs of Kise’s knees, fingers pressing gently. Kise felt himself stumble forward half a step, fingers still covered in peanut butter and raisins.

“Don’t stop,” Aomine had said, bringing his hands up to pull lightly at the hem of Kise’s basketball shorts—which had technically been Aomine’s shorts but, still. Kise’s eyes had widened, his hands returning to finishing the snack. He didn’t watch Aomine, he only felt—Aomine’s hands on his clothes, on his skin, his lips working a quick line up his thighs until Kise had been in his mouth, touching the back of his throat, and his peanut butter and raisin-covered hands had  _shook_.

Kise had never enjoyed making a snack more than that in his entire life. But he also hadn’t been about to let Aomine get away with it, what with his smug smirk and his gleaming eyes and his self-satisfied comments afterwards. Oh no, Kise had thought, smiling dangerously at a beaming Aomine one day when he’d come up with the perfect payback.

Needless to say, Aomine’s new favorite meal that day had been pancakes with so, much, syrup.

Kise recalls the memory with perfect clarity, still uncertain that he’d licked every last bit of syrup off of every part of Aomine’s skin where he’d left it. He can’t help but smile, the memory of the sweet sugary taste on the back of his throat mixed with something far more bitter is unexplainable but so damned enticing. He wants a lifetime of these memories, all different kinds of them, forever with Aomine.

He wants the passion, the domesticity, the jokes and resounding laughter, the grumpy lazy mornings under blankets and surrounded by one another’s heat. He wants Aomine’s stories, his explanations of his tattoos, so rarely given but so deeply cherished. And more than that, he wants to share himself with Aomine too, wants him to know everything about him, to be completely bare before him and have Aomine look at him with those sharp blue eyes, accepting and loving and  _his_.

It might have been his optimistic nature, finally making a reappearance through the pessimism that has been clouding over him, or maybe it’s just the memories, so soft and sweet and vivid in his mind’s eye. Regardless, something in Kise settles his nerves and lets him relax, his tense shoulders falling low, taking some of the weight off of them so that he can breathe out a relieved sigh.

Yet even still, his heart continues to race a disjointed rhythm in his chest.   
  


  
✧  
  
  


When Kise arrives at Aomine’s place and knocks gently on his door, no one answers. He tries calling Aomine’s phone a few times to no avail before he decides to call Momoi, asking her if Aomine is working. He isn’t, and even more surprising, Momoi says that she has not seen or heard from him. Kise catches on to her barbed tone, though, and feels an ache crawl through him. He knows without even asking that she has seen the footage and he guesses quite aptly that she’s probably a little hurt, maybe suspicious, and definitely protective on Aomine’s behalf. Kise doesn’t blame or resent her for drawing away from him, even if only slightly. If he’d been in her position, he knows without a doubt that he would have reacted the same way, if not even more so.

There is no choice but for him to bring it up to her, to explain to her in much the same way that he plans to explain to Aomine. She listens to him, patient and respectful, until he’s finished making his case. There’s a lasting silence.

“I want to believe you, Kise. You know I love you. But, I mean, you guys looked pretty sincere, you know?”

“I was ambushed!” he groans, rubbing a hand over his face. “And this entire relationship was supposed to look sincere, it’s a  _publicity_  thing. I have absolutely no romantic feelings for James, I promise you. It’s going to be over soon.”

Momoi makes a noncommittal noise, not agreeing or disagreeing, before explaining that she has to get back to work. Kise accepts the dismissal, knowing that he’s going to have to make it up to her later when all of this is behind them. Still, her response to the explanation has rekindled his earlier anxiety; he feels shaken and worried and he has no idea how effective his explanation and his apology are going to be for Aomine if they don’t even make more than a mark on Momoi.

Still, he is not a coward. He will find Aomine and he will confront this entire shitty situation face-to-face instead of letting it go unexplained, festering like an open wound.

It takes him over an hour to finally locate Aomine, at a public basketball court no less, shooting hoops in a tank top and sweatpants, sweating and out of breath like he’s been playing hard and long. Kise is relieved to have found him, but the hour of searching for him has done nothing to lessen his nerves or his anxiety. In fact, it has given him ample time to come up with every possible situation his explanation might merit between them, each one more worrying than the last, leaving him feeling raw.

“Hey,” he says, walking through the open gate, hands in his pockets and eyes trained on the easy way that Aomine’s body moves with the ball in his hands. His tattoos are stark and bright even in the poor lighting on the court, looking even more fluid with his seamless technique, so much so that Kise could’ve sworn that they’re each of them moving on their own.

“I’ve been looking all over for you.” He comes to a stop just inside the outside line of the court, the paint broken up and almost indistinguishable with too many sneakers pounding and sliding over it. Aomine doesn’t say a word to him, doesn’t even turn to look his way—he just continues dribbling and shooting the ball towards the net, effortless and beautiful. He makes it every time.

“I stopped by your place,” he adds, watching Aomine carefully. “I called.”

At that, he sees Aomine’s jaw clench, just once, but it’s telling. He remembers his missed call and feels his stomach turn. Still, he receives no verbal answer.

“I’m guessing you saw the clip.” He finally says, voice carefully pitched. He shuffles nervously, never taking his eyes from Aomine’s face.

“I can explain,” he begins, hating the cliché words, hating the way they taste like betrayal on his tongue even though he knows he hasn’t done anything wrong, lacing his lips with a searing burn he can’t get rid of.

“I don’t give a shit.”

Aomine’s words ring with an air of finality, brazen and abrupt, a snarl thrown carelessly at Kise’s feet. Kise feels his heart start to break, just a piece of it, the first impact, still whole but working harder than it had before. That easy, that quick, and Aomine no longer cares about him. He knows that’s not entirely true, can see it in the strain of Aomine’s neck, the tension of his muscles, the jerky way he is now handling the ball. Kise owes him an explanation and more than that, he owes him candor. No bullshit.

“It’s one-sided.” He begins, lifting his chin when Aomine snarls something cruel in response. “I just found out about it last night. I had no idea that he had begun to take the relationship seriously. I had no idea that he was in love with me.”

“Yeah because it was so fucking hard to see, right?” Aomine spits derisively, shooting the ball in a powerful arc that banks off the rim of the hoop and swirls, once, then almost twice, before falling through the net.

“It was for me!” Kise promises, voice rising slightly. “You have to believe me, Aominecchi, I didn’t know.”

“I don’t believe a word that’s coming out of your mouth.” Aomine laughs, and it‘s a bitter, terrible thing. It sounds so wrong coming from Aomine, so painful. Kise wonders what kind of people have been on the receiving end of that laughter before and pictures bruised and bloodied bodies at Aomine’s feet, flinching.

“Is it really so easy for you to disregard my honesty after seeing one clip of someone expressing affection for me? I know you care about me more than that. I deserve more than that.” He closes his eyes for a moment as he speaks, trying to blink the pain in his chest away, but to no avail. He opens his eyes and stares hard at Aomine, knowing that eye-contact is going to be pivotal in convincing Aomine that Kise isn’t hiding anything from him, that he is opening himself up before him again—that he will always open up for Aomine, always let him in, even to the parts of himself he doesn’t like.

“Affection?” Aomine’s tone is barely audible, low and dangerous.

He stops, his arms coming back down from where he’d been setting up to shoot the ball once more. He turns, his face a mask of shards of shadow, every line of him lethal, his body coming towards Kise’s like a speeding train. Somewhere distant in Kise’s mind he hears the horn blaring, can feel the heat of the nonexistent exhaust on the delicate skin of his cheeks and wonders how anyone has ever gone against Aomine and survived to tell the tale.

“He wasn’t expressing  _affection_  for you,” he speaks the word like it’s poison, spitting it out onto the ground like waste. “He fucking  _loves_  you. There isn’t a single inch of him that doesn’t want to be around you, be  _in_  you. In your heart and your mind and your body, your fucking veins. Affection,” he snarls, “is the goddamn least of it.”

“What do you want me to say? What do you want me to do? It’s  _one-sided_. I do not love him. I love  _you_.”

Aomine snorts, shaking his head as he studies Kise’s expression before turning away once again to dribble the ball back towards the center of the court.

“Your love for me really showed when you were sticking your tongue down his throat beside the cab, huh? Right after he said he loved you. Funny, I don’t remember love working like that.”

“It’s  _publicity_ , that’s all it is. I explained that to you before it even began.” Kise runs his hands through his hair, agitated, frustrated, and uncertain of his every move.

“I wanted nothing more than to break it off and push him away, but then all of this would be for nothing. There were cameras and reporters all around us; I couldn’t push my supposed boyfriend away from me because of a kiss. We’re supposed to kiss.”

Everything sounds like excuses, even to his own ears, and even though he knows that they are valid, he still feels like a traitor. Aomine, on similar grounds, isn’t having any of it. His rage is so apparent it shines through the murky depths of his eyes, makes Kise feel like he’s standing before a meteor intent on crashing down on him.

“Publicity,” he snarls, crushing the word between his teeth. “I didn’t sign up for that shit. For infidelity.”

“This isn’t a business relationship, you didn’t sign up for anything and neither did I. Not with you. My fake relationship with James is one I begrudgingly signed up for. It  _isn’t_ real. I’m not cheating on you. What you and I have,  _that’s_ real. It’s  _real_ ,” Kise demands, this time being the one to move aggressively forward, shrugging his bag off his shoulder and onto the ground carelessly.

“Stop playing with the fucking ball and look at me,” he finally demands, watching as Aomine finally turns back to him, sharp and quick and hostile, flinging the basketball straight at Kise without preamble. Kise catches it easily, ignores the resulting sting of his freezing fingertips against the pressure of the toss, and leaps into the air, shooting the ball towards the hoop and not removing his eyes from Aomine as his boyfriend watches the ball fall seamlessly through the net.

“You looking now?” Kise asks, firm and unyielding. Aomine’s eyes are flames tucked away in shaded caverns, gleaming in the dark of the night, the only light within them the reflection of the streetlights overhead.

“What I do with James, every single thing we do together, is for publicity. It isn’t real. When we hold hands, when he kisses me, all I ever feel is disloyal. Every second I’m with him I’m thinking of you. I don’t know how you can’t see it, how you can’t  _know_  it. You’re it for me. I want no one else, just you, forever.”

“You can’t expect me to believe you, even if you make the words sound pretty. If it’s so easy for you to kiss some other guy and then tell me it isn’t real, why should I believe that when you kiss me it  _is_?”

“Because kissing you doesn’t impact my career. Because I trust you and you can trust me. Because I love you.”

“Pretty words,” Aomine repeats, shaking his head. “You’re good with words. Really good. I’ve seen some of your interviews, not of my own choice but because Momoi wanted to watch them a few times when she was at my place. You know how to charm the socks off of anyone you meet. Anyone. You’re also good at lying.”

Kise feels his heart breaking with ever word because he knows, he  _knows_ he’s a liar, that in some aspects he is fake. He knows that he’s a chameleon, constantly changing his colors, and that everything Aomine is saying has a hint of truth to it. Aomine is mixed parts hurt and angry but there’s a look he keeps getting in his eyes that has Kise’s breath slowing until he feels like he’s choking, like he’s forgotten how to breathe, something jaded and punctured and so very much like vulnerability, like  _fear_.

“All the things you’ve told me, all the things we’ve talked about…I don’t even know what to believe anymore. How can I know that when you touch that guy you don’t feel excitement like how I do when I touch you?” Aomine pauses, chokes off something else he’d wanted to say, looks caught off-guard by his own words and Kise realizes right then and there that Aomine truly loves him, that this isn’t something that Aomine has ever experienced before. This is something that Aomine knows is huge and he’s afraid of it—afraid of how strong it is or how easily he can lose it, Kise isn’t sure which—so much that he’s dead-set on pushing Kise away, regardless of his explanations.

Aomine pulling back his feelings and his words is more than just a sign of trouble for their relationship. It rings with painful finality, the severing of a spinal cord once healthy and protected but splintered in an instant, leaving the rest of the body numb and unmoving. Some things cannot be fixed. Kise aches.

“Is your relationship with him really fake? How many lies have you told me?” Aomine is asking him, still raging, an unstoppable avalanche picking up speed, crushing every flicker of life with no sign of stopping.

“I can’t say that I haven’t lied to you because everyone lies, but I’ve never done so in order to cause you harm or keep you out of the loop,” Kise starts, voice breaking but earnest as he takes a step towards Aomine. But then, like a punch to the gut, he realizes  _no, no that’s wrong, it’s wrong_. He  _has_  lied to Aomine—has been lying to him for months about that tattoo, and now that he is thinking about it, it seems so small a thing, so petty. But when he looks back up into Aomine’s storming eyes, there is nothing but pained acceptance, lit bright by the dying embers of his burning rage.

“Ah,” he says, nodding his head mockingly. “You’re remembering them, then?”

“No,” Kise says immediately, backpedalling. “No it’s not—it’s not like that. It’s not important, it’s—”

“Why don’t we let me be the judge of that? Come on then. What’s the secret you’ve been keeping?” Even though Aomine’s tone is smug, deliberate to cover the hurt and Kise knows that no matter what he says now he’s lost any influence in this confrontation, he presses on. He has to.

“It’s a long story,” Kise hesitates, not even knowing where to start, though he wants desperately to begin with an apology. He’s more than aware that doing so would only piss Aomine off further, so he holds it back, tucks it away.

“I’ve got time.” Aomine says, crossing his arms over his chest and somehow managing to look even more foreboding.

“I’m sorry,” He blurts, flushing with shame as the apology he’d truly tried to withhold slips past his lips. He feels pinpricks promising of rampant emotions building up behind the mask of strength he’s trying to maintain over his expression, his eyes blinking wetness away for as long as possible. His fists clench at his sides and he struggles to breathe around the pressure on his chest.

“I’ve wasted so much of your time, so much of your energy because of it,” and then even with all of the stops he’d put out, tears begin to form in his eyes. They’re not from the pain, though it is definitely there, alive and growing beneath his skin, burning into him and leaving scars, but rather from anger at himself, at letting this secret fester so long that it is now strong enough to have the potential to break a beautiful bond.

“So it is the relationship then.” Aomine nods, confirming something he’s apparently been mulling over for some time in-between his last meeting with Kise and now. Kise watches the incorrect assumption form and solidify in the heat of Aomine’s eyes before he turns to grab the discarded basketball, leaving Kise feeling unhinged in his shadow.

“No!” he exclaims, and carelessly follows after Aomine’s retreat, hands outstretched and reaching as if to grasp the tail end of Aomine’s shirt—as if it’s even possible for him to reach Aomine in this moment when there is so much building and solidifying between them. As if Aomine will even let Kise touch him.

“Fucking spit it out then!” Aomine whirls back to him with so much aggression in his body language that Kise sputters to a stop, physically unable to move closer.

“It’s the tattoo,” he whispers, biting down on his quivering lip as he watches Aomine’s expression close off, shut down.

He stares wide-eyed and confused at Kise. “What?”

“The tattoo I’ve been having you work on for me. I don’t actually want—well, that’s not actually—I  _want_  it, but I can’t have it. I can’t—”

“The sunset tattoo?” Aomine asks, tone abruptly neutral, though he is so naturally emotive it’s easy to see the lightning through the clouded expression on his face.

“Yes,” Kise whispers, feeling as though he is singlehandedly pounding the final nail in his own coffin. There is no keeping the broken tone out of his voice or the lines of his tired face. Aomine looks away from him, focuses down at the pavement for a long moment, the silence of the night a barrage against Kise’s ringing ears. Tears trail down his cheeks, forgotten and gleaming in the streetlights.

A moment that feels so long Kise thinks he can feel time plucking at each individual string of his soul, threading them bare, passes between them. Aomine tucks the basketball against his side, looks slowly back up at Kise with eyes burning anew, slowly igniting embers, brows pressed down almost as if he was confused. There is that flicker of vulnerability again, the fear he tries so hard to hide. And this time it’s in more than just the marvelous blue of his eyes, but has slipped into the tone of his rugged voice, shredding it raw.

“Is anything you’ve ever said to me even true? Or are they all lies?”

The words tear through Kise like bullets, each one signed with his own name on the shell. Kise feels his heart shatter, knowing the questions are rhetorical, that any rejoinder he might offer would fall on deaf ears. Aomine’s eyes lose focus as he shelters himself in his own world, his own mind, and Kise knows that Aomine can’t even see him anymore. He’s staring right through him, like he’s not even there.

So Kise stays quiet, not because he’s a coward or because he doesn’t care enough to keep fighting, but because anything further would only hurt Aomine even more—and he  _is_  hurt. He looks pale, his eyes unblinking as he refocuses at last on Kise’s face, his own expression filtering away like ashes crumbling beneath the ruins of a once-strong shrine.

“…Fuck this.” He whispers, bending down to pick up his discarded jacket and striding towards Kise without even looking at him. Kise stays completely still, only flinching when Aomine walks right past him, the shadow of his breeze leaving Kise’s skin chilled.

Kise stands in the oncoming storm; frozen in body and expression, and lets his tears join the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (holds hands up) I really don't want to spoil anything but even more than that, I do NOT want you to think this is a love triangle kind of story. So, vague spoilers, there is no love triangle; there is instead alcohol and rampant desires misconstrued as love. Happens to the best of us.
> 
> That being said, I'll see you all next Saturday c:  
> (breakdances softly through town) (breakdances softly off a cliff)


	9. Chapter 9

Four days after everything with James and Aomine comes to a head, Kise wakes up and curls in on himself with the realization that he’s fucked up—possibly beyond repair. He rolls up into a sitting position and puts his face in his hands, so consumed with the damage done that he doesn’t even feel the heat of the sun pouring into his room and onto his skin, a surprising change from the rainstorm that had prevailed for the majority of the week. Instead, his mind traces circles around thoughts of how he should’ve fought more for Aomine, should’ve fought  _harder_  for their relationship.

He’s been giving Aomine space, making sure that he stays away from The Zone and Aomine’s favorite convenience store and even the tiny little shop on the corner where Aomine browses video games without any intention of purchasing any. Kise even avoids The Bakery for fear that he’ll run into Aomine there, randomly getting a muffin or a cookie or a strawberry shake, his favorite. His arc of avoidance extends further than Aomine alone, too. He has declined all meetings with Kobori to discuss his relationship status but has thrown himself headfirst into every photoshoot and press release, feeding them vague, leading notions of tiny troubles between he and James so subtly that they don’t even realize that something is amiss in the relationship.

Yet later, in just a few days when his and James’s relationship will finally be publically over, he is certain that they’ll look back over his words the week prior and see all of the signs he has so deftly laid out before them. Hints of Kise not being as excited upon hearing James’s name, frowning when asked how their relationship is doing, and switching topics when asked what is next for the two of them.

He hasn’t seen Momoi or anyone from The Zone, either, though he still texts her, just not nearly as frequently or with as much enthusiasm as he has previously. For her part, Momoi still speaks to him but the subtle, jaded edge to all of her words remains, even through texts, and often leaves Kise with the feeling of being attacked. He knows that it comes from her protectiveness of Aomine, from her worry. He understands it. He doesn’t call her out on it or complain. He remains withdrawn and a little reserved, taking on his upcoming work projects with a ferocity that surprises even Kobori.

Yet even though she’s distant and sometimes a little defensive, Momoi is also receptive to Kise’s struggles and has been gradually warming back up to him over their phone calls and texts. She still has an impeccable sense for details and knows the exact moment that Kise will most appreciate a topic shift away from his fuck-ups and Aomine’s glaring avoidance of anything to do with Kise by bringing up her budding relationship with the ever-elusive Riko Aida.

“We’ve been on several dates now and she hasn’t kicked me out of her place  _once_. In fact,” Momoi had gushed, pausing to take a breath and probably hold a hand to her love struck heart, if Kise were to guess. “I’ve slept over.”

“She let you spend the night?” Kise had chirped, eyebrows pushed high and smile wide enough that his cheeks began to hurt. Momoi had laughed, sounding breathless on the other end of the line.

“We  _cuddled_.” She gushed, clearly exuberant.

“Momocchi! That’s so exciting!”

“And we make out like, all the time.  _All the time_.”

They’d continue to chatter on excitedly over the week, Momoi offering updates on hers and Riko’s relationship and giving Kise all the details she has, which is as delightful an improvement in Momoi’s life as it is a distraction from his own. Listening to her gush endlessly about Riko over the phone reminds Kise of the first few weeks that he and Aomine had finally realized that they were into each other and that a relationship between them was not only possible but almost inevitable.

Momoi’s excitement and her pure happiness leaks through the phone and brightens Kise’s aching heart just enough to get him through the day without wanting to cry. Momoi’s positivity and her joy feels like Kise’s had in the beginning, touches him deep in his heart and leaves him a little breathless on the receiving end of her stories. He’s so happy for her and he wants to hug her and have her spend the night so that he can play with her hair while she tells him everything in person, but he knows that he can’t. Not yet. Even with her seemingly endless cheer and the added bonus of her work picking up because of an ad that Wakamatsu had put on a billboard for her, she is still Aomine’s childhood friend, closest to and most protective of him.

When Kise isn’t chattering excitedly over the phone with her and he isn’t working himself down to the bone at work, he’s at home mindlessly watching television and trying to think of the words he wants to say once he finally encounters Aomine again.

At the time of the disaster itself and immediately after, it had seemed like the best way to handle the situation was to let Aomine be angry, to not try to uselessly refute when Aomine was too blinded with rage to even hear Kise’s explanations. Kise has been trying to convince himself of this fact for days now, coming up with every alternative and comparing it with the one he’s chosen.

His choice has been the most detrimental. He has fucked up royally and the days between have only served to remind him of this fact. He hasn’t had a single good night of sleep, spending most of them tossing and turning and trying to shut his mind off so that he can get some peace and quiet, but still his thoughts and his heart race, trying to find a solution.

On the morning of the fourth day since Kise has avoided and been avoided by Aomine, he wakes up exhausted from yet another sleepless night but with a clear mind and clear intentions. So he has fucked up, that much is obvious.

But there is still time, still room for him to apologize and to explain and to make things right—to go to Aomine and let him express his anger and his hurt and for Kise to apologize for what he has done, for what it has done to Aomine, to  _them_ , and how he is going to try to fix it—how he is going to show Aomine that he is trustworthy and that he truly loves Aomine, in the way that no matter the circumstances one can never forget or un-feel. There will be no one else in the world that can touch Kise’s life like Aomine has; he has left a permanent mark on Kise’s heart and soul that will never be replaced or forgotten.

Kise isn’t going to let their relationship die. He is not a coward. He’s determined, a survivor. In his line of business, he has to be. He hadn’t always been the Golden Boy of modeling with widespread acceptance and seemingly impossible connections. He’d fought tooth and nail to get where he is, strategically and with every ounce of passion in his body.

And yet in Aomine’s eyes, he’s let their relationship flounder without a second glance. Kise refuses to just sit there and wallow in his self-made disaster, refuses to be inactive a single second longer. He moves quickly, getting up and getting ready without even really looking at what he’s putting on before he‘s walking out the door, hailing a cab and heading directly for The Zone.

He isn’t going to let this relationship dither and die out, won’t let it progress any further down the drain than it already has. He loves Aomine, more than anyone and anything in the world, and he isn’t willing to let him get away. Aomine is special; a unique kind of person that is rare to come by and hard to find. He’s lazy and filthy and he needs to be reminded frequently to wash his clothes and even then, he usually forgets. His room is a pigsty and he can’t cook worth a shit and the only time he is ever clean and orderly is when he is in The Zone, inking and piercing and changing people’s lives one body modification at a time.

But he’s also endearingly competitive at video games and cooking and anything that can be turned into a challenge. He’s tender after sex and treats Kise’s body like the world’s most perfect tattoo with the way he carefully and strategically traces shapes against his skin. He has a penchant for learning that’s buried deep under layers and layers of grumpy complaints and sarcasm, but once revealed it’s reminiscent of a child’s insatiable curiosity. His kisses are intoxicating and his movements like magic; everything about him is bright and hot and sears into Kise’s heart. The more Kise learns about him and experiences him in any setting, the more he wants him and the more he wants to share himself in the same ways.

Everyone Kise has ever dated before Aomine had been streams, calm and babbling and littered with stones that perpetually interrupt the peace of their relationship. Safe and quiet and boring.

With Aomine, Kise  _burns_.

Kise has to figure some things out, has to inform Kobori of his plans and how they will influence his future, but that can wait—it will have to. All he knows right now is that James had been the first to break the contract between them and that there is nothing holding Kise back from going after what he truly wants anymore, not even with the final week of his faux relationship hanging over him. As far as he’s concerned, the faux relationship had ended the moment James had gone against the terms of the contract.

Kise had washed his hands of the relationship when he’d looked up from the sink and stared long and hard at his face in the mirror, studying the gauntness of his cheeks and the shadows in his eyes and realized that it isn’t only his heart and his mind aching without Aomine’s presence in his life, it’s everything. He hasn’t eaten much other than cereal and some fruit cups offered at his work meetings since his dinner with James and he can’t remember the last time he’s put cologne on or brushed his hair, but none of that seems to matter in comparison. He’s almost certain that he smells and needs a shower, but he’s already waited too long to go after Aomine—there is nothing that can stop him now.

That first night after the blowout his mind had been a dark storm, clouded with regret and guilt and the constant thrumming pain of acknowledging that he had hurt Aomine in a way that he was certain Aomine had never been hurt before. Aomine had shared parts of himself with Kise that he had never shared with anyone else, words and touches and breaths. Aomine had said that it’s different with Kise. It’s  _better_.

Kise is determined to prove him right.  
  


✧

  
Kise is inside of The Zone for less than a minute before Momoi’s arms are wrapped around him and she’s tearfully chastising him for not coming in sooner. Midorima actually comes around the front desk and crosses his arms at them, leaning back against the desk and raising a single perfectly sculpted eyebrow at Kise. This is more of a welcome from Midorima than Kise has ever gotten from him and it sort of makes him want to cry. Wakamatsu shouts welcoming curses at Kise from the back of the shop and Imayoshi quietly and subversively threatens Wakamatsu’s life if he continues to disturb their present customers with his howling. The short black-haired guy that Kise remembers Midorima bringing to Foundation Nightclub is there, too, coming to stand next to Midorima and slipping an arm around his waist comfortably. He watches the events unfold with sharp, curious eyes and a smile like razorblades.

“Idiot!” Momoi cries, face a little red with glassy eyes and a furious pout. She pulls back and wipes at her face before crossing her arms over her chest and stomping her foot at him. Kise self-consciously rubs at the back of his neck, flushed and feeling the sting of tears in his eyes.

“Uh, hey everyone,” he calls, conscious of the volume of his voice as Imayoshi shoots a warning sneer his way. Akashi glances up curiously, expression neutral.

“Long time no see, Golden Boy.” Wakamatsu chirps, coming down the hallway with a box in his hands. Kise had thought it looked pretty light initially but when Wakamatsu bends over to drop it on the ground it crashes like a quiet explosion and Kise wonders if something has broken. Wakamatsu wipes his hands together and comes forward to slap Kise’s bicep, frowning at him and joining Midorima and Momoi by crossing his arms over his chest as well.

“He’s not here, if you were wondering.” Wakamatsu says frankly, making Kise cringe. Momoi turns and smacks Wakamatsu on the arm, hissing something unintelligible at him.

“No tact.” Midorima intones, shaking his head and looking at Wakamatsu like he’s a bug that has flown into his shop. Wakamatsu cracks his knuckles, giving Midorima a look promising violence. Midorima doesn’t seem to care much for it, however, and merely turns to Kise with a curl of his lip.

“You smell terrible.”  He greets, still pulling a face. Kise laughs, bobbing his head in agreement.

“Yeah, my bad.”

“You look like shit, too.” Wakamatsu adds, tirelessly blithe. Momoi sighs loudly and the guy beside Midorima, Takao as Kise remembers, laughs out loud.

“Okay, yeah, we get it, he looks like shit.” Momoi says, gesturing at Kise with her hands as if to make it that much more apparent. He’ll take it because he knows it’s the truth, though he still flushes a little under the scrutiny.

“But that’s not what’s important here. What  _is_  important is  _why_  are you  _here_?” Momoi’s voice is strained, almost high-pitched and her eyes are wide and Kise feels like he just got punched in the gut. Maybe coming here had been a mistake after all, maybe it's too soon for him to be accepted back, maybe he never will be accepted back again.

“I’m sorry,” he intones, quiet and slow. “I didn’t know I wasn’t welcome here anymore. I’m sorry.”

“What the fuck?” Wakamatsu blurts and Momoi shoots a look his way that is even more dangerous than Imayoshi’s, shutting him up instantly.

“Of course you’re welcome here!” Momoi gives him a look, irritated but at the same time overtly concerned. Confused, Kise looks at each person in kind, trying to see some sort of connection on their faces. All he can really come up with is that they’re irritated with him and some vague sort of pressure that makes him feel like they’re expecting something of him.

“I mean what are you doing  _here_  when you should be with Dai-chan?” Momoi asks, pursing her lips and frowning up at him. Kise gives her a meaningful look, utterly confused.

“I thought we’d covered this already, on the phone…” he hedges, tone gentle so that he won’t unknowingly press any of her buttons. Momoi rolls her eyes and runs a dainty hand through the perfect curls of her bubblegum hair.

“Don’t you know he’s been waiting for you? What are you  _doing_?” Kise’s eyes go wide, his mouth dropping open as he glances around at his friends’ faces once again. Something in the air has shifted and he realizes that this is what they have been expecting—they want him to go to Aomine.

Surprised and still so confused, he sputters, “What do you think I’m doing? I’m giving him  _space_! What else would I be doing?”

“Oh my God you two are both  _such idiots_. I don’t know how I deal with you.” Kise opens his mouth to interject, but Momoi is having none of it. She puts her hands on her hips and opens her stance, looking powerful and dangerous and every ounce of her as assertive as a leader. When she speaks, Kise becomes certain that Momoi would’ve been an excellent coach in another life as her words are backed with steel, utterly unquestionable.

She commands, “Go to his apartment and  _say_   _you’re sorry_.”

His eyes flicker around to all of his friends’ faces one last time and he finds that they're smiling, every single one of them, even Midorima, though his smile looks really uncomfortable on his face. That quick, that easy, and he’s back in all of their good graces. It’s a testament to how much he’s truly cared for here—how many lives he’s crashed into and yet somehow managed to become someone they want to keep. He’s so touched he feels the prick of tears at his eyes again, knowing that this more than anything else they’ve ever shown him is a clear sign of them trusting him absolutely. They all love Aomine in their own ways—as a boss, a friend, a coworker—and they’re as tightly bound as a military unit, supportive and encouraging and always having one another’s backs. And this, their support of him pursuing Aomine even after having hurt him, this is the culmination of their trust in him and he’s never felt more accepted in his entire life.

They trust him to take care of Aomine, to love him and cherish him even after what he’s done. The feelings rushing over him in that instant are transcendent, lifting up every defeated process in him and influencing his outlook to bloom once again, every part of him returning to the first day of spring, to sunshine and growth and rebirth.

“Roger,” he replies quietly, voice breathy and body already turning back for the door. He doesn’t even pause, hears Wakamatsu make some sort of excited battle cry as he pushes through the door and the stomping steps that Kise is sure belong to Imayoshi moving threateningly towards Wakamatsu, hears Midorima mumble something unintelligible and Takao laugh in response. Momoi is a silent but strong presence behind him as he leaves, all of their voices and their trust pushing him forward and clearing his heart and his mind so that there is nothing in the world that can stop him from finding Aomine and making things  _right_.

There is no fear, no hesitation, no apprehension.

Only resolve. Only love.

Love is all he needs.

 

✧

 

Kise tales a cab to Aomine’s apartment and has to sit through more traffic than he’d expected, but the good vibes from his friends in The Zone and his restored confidence keep him equally as positive as he is determined. He is practically bouncing in his seat by the time they finally pull up in front of Aomine’s apartment complex, half an hour later than Kise had been expecting to, but nonetheless. He’s there.

He thanks his driver profusely and gives him a hefty tip since Kise had been unable to be his usual cheery enigmatic self and had been quite brash with the man. He takes the steps up to Aomine’s apartment two at a time and raps his knuckles against the hard wood paneling of his door before he even has time to catch his breath. His eyes are bright and wide and he’s breathing heavily from the rush and the stairs and his hands are shaking but none of it matters, none of it at all, because he is  _here_  and he is going to see Aomine and talk to him and they are going to make this work. Kise is going to fix this and everything is just—

It’s going to be all right.

Because when the door opens and Kise sees Aomine standing there with bed head and crusty old sweats and a light green muscle tank on, every ounce of worry in him dissolves and evaporates. He looks at Aomine and he sees bright, hot promise. He sees a future of fun and challenge and exhilaration, filled with love and honest, earnest companionship.

Aomine is his and he is Aomine’s. It’s just that simple.

There had been a flicker of a moment where Kise had wondered if there would be awkward silence, or if Aomine would shut the door in his face. Neither of these things happen. Instead, Kise’s voice builds and escapes out before he can even arrange his thoughts, spewing stuttered apologies and disjointed explanations messily all over Aomine’s front steps.

“I’m so sorry, about everything, the lies, the half-truths, I’m so sorry I hurt you, I fucked up so bad,” he cries and to his shame there are tears already building in his eyes, his lips trembling and his hands shaking so much it’s impossible not to notice. He’d wanted to be strong and let Aomine do the talking—Aomine  _deserves_  to be the one to take control of this situation, but having him here within arm’s reach is too powerful an incentive for him to not blurt his most plaguing thoughts. He looks up at Aomine with tearful eyes, taking in the lines of exhaustion on his face, the brightness of his eyes upon seeing Kise here at his door, the way his hands curl into fists and his shoulders straighten ever so slightly. Kise doesn’t know what to expect; he has no idea how Aomine will respond to this circumstance, so he braces himself for an attack of any kind and he braces himself for silence, too.

“Yeah,” Aomine finally says, nodding his head and never once breaking his gaze from Kise’s. His voice is shattered glass grinding down to dust and Kise wants to step forward and kiss the words right from his lips but he doesn’t move, doesn’t glance away, stays completely still and waits for Aomine.

Aomine’s brows come down and his expression flickers in uncertainty. “Yeah you fucked up big time. You  _really_  fucked up. What’s wrong with you?”

“I have no excuse,” Kise chokes, swallowing. “There is no excuse. I hurt you and I can’t fucking undo it. But I can learn from it. I  _am_  learning from it. I’m sorry that I lied to you and that I didn’t tell you the truth about the tattoo. I’m sorry that I ever accepted a fake relationship just for publicity’s sake when I could’ve had the world with you, and I’m sorry you had to experience that. I never should’ve made you experience that.”

“Kise,” Aomine’s voice is stern, but quiet. A soft reprimand that Kise can’t pinpoint.

“I missed you so much.” He whispers. “I’m so sorry I hurt you; I  _never_  meant to hurt you. I’m a fucking disaster,” Kise laughs dispassionately, shaking his head. Aomine’s expression is unreadable, even for Kise, his eyes searching and searching until Kise watches them slowly slide shut. Aomine lets his head fall back so that he’s looking heavenward, groaning loud and long, his chest expanding and deflating around it.

When he looks back at Kise he’s got one brow raised and his entire expression is open like Kise has never expected to see again. Every emotion is there, stark and plain on Aomine’s face and burning in his eyes like renewed flames. Kise feels breathless.

“Well, it took you long enough to come fucking apologize.” He says, and Kise feels like he’s been transported into a new, separate universe. He raises his own eyebrows in surprise, mouth dropping open slightly before he can get the words out.

“I was giving you  _space_! You said ‘fuck this’ and you  _left_. I took that as a pretty clear sign that you wanted nothing to do with me ever again!”

“Geez, you’re so dramatic.” Aomine huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. Kise stares in flabbergasted wonder as he notices that Aomine’s cheeks are a little flushed, that he’s glanced away probably because he doesn’t want Kise to notice.

He purses his lips and says, “I just needed a day to cool my head a little. I was waiting for you to come after me, idiot.”

Kise feels the world shifting beneath his feet, his mind shifting right along with it, everything suddenly unstable and shaky but gradually coming into focus, slowing and stilling until all Kise can focus on is Aomine’s intent, honest gaze and the way that he’s blatantly accepting Kise right back into his life, just like that. In that moment Kise is so vulnerable he feels as light and as permeable as a cloud, a single breath of air could dispel him in an instant.

“If I would’ve known that,” Kise says cautiously, utterly sincere. “I would’ve been here much sooner. You wouldn’t have even made it home that night without running into my ugly mug at your doorstep.”

Aomine laughs and its low, short, and quiet; but it’s more than Kise is expecting. Genuine as it is coming from Aomine, Kise still thinks it feels like a gift, something he doesn’t quite deserve just yet but accepts greedily, happily, regardless.

“I am so sorry, Aominecchi.” Kise finally whispers, one last time. He bows his head, lets his chin touch his chest. There’s a moment of silence and then Aomine’s taking a step towards him, startling Kise into looking up at him and finding Aomine with his strong arms outstretched—and there isn’t a single part of Kise that is afraid.

Heavily muscled body covered in tattoos and piercings, with eyes and a smile like razorblades; strong, purposeful hands and a past of violence with the markings of scars to prove it and yet even still, even still, Kise welcomes Aomine with no fear.

He steps forward and meets Aomine halfway, letting his strong arms fold around him and pull Kise close into the solid strength of Aomine’s chest, his hands curling into the fabric of Kise’s shirt and holding him there as Kise begins to really cry, the tears streaming openly down his cheeks. Aomine holds him so close Kise can feel him trembling and that fills Kise with wonder—that someone as strong and sure of himself as Aomine could be shaken by someone like Kise—it is a novel experience. 

Kise presses his lips to Aomine’s trapezius muscle in the gentlest of kisses, pressing his nose against his neck and feeling the tickle of Aomine’s hairline. Kise can feel Aomine’s pulse racing beneath his lips and he kisses it, once, twice, cherishing it with the softness of his lips. Aomine’s hands stay locked in the fabric of Kise’s shirt, keep Kise locked into place in the cove of his chest and arms without an escape route.

Not that Kise wants one, not that he’ll ever want or need an escape route from Aomine Daiki. Aomine is strong and there’s proof to his strength and his violence but Kise knows without a doubt that he’s past that lifestyle and even more than that, that he would never, ever hurt Kise like that. Kise has heard stories from both Aomine and Momoi about Aomine’s past and how he’d had to choose between being the kid who got beaten up every day on the way home from school or the kid who beat up the bullies instead. He’d had more than just himself to look after, though, with a tiny pink-haired Momoi at his side and a small group of kids they used to hang out with, none of them with a fighting bone in their body. It was their luck, then, that they’d befriended a storm like Aomine.

He’d chosen to fight. He always chose the fight, at least when he was younger; always chasing those who chased others, a gruff and unapologetic protector. Aomine had explained to Kise early on that he isn’t about that life anymore, that he’s too lazy for it or something equally as amusing and ridiculous. He’d realized that using his fists to settle things wasn’t right, hadn’t ever been right, but it’d been something necessary then. It no longer is, now, though, and that is truly what’s most important.

Kise sees the maturity in the transition of mindsets and lifestyles and he admires it greatly, thanking his lucky stars that Aomine is mature enough to understand that creating fights before they can even happen so as to save those he cares for is not the appropriate way to approach life. Had he never learned that lesson, Kise isn’t sure that he’d be in Aomine’s arms right now, close to forgiveness if not already forgiven. Once upon a time he might’ve left this place with a black eye and the taste of his own blood in his mouth at the hands of one Aomine Daiki.

Instead Aomine’s hands hold him gently, like porcelain, breakable should he apply too much pressure. Aomine unclenches his hands and move them over Kise’s back and body like he is trying to keep him from falling to the ground, a subtle pressure that Kise feels whether he’s conscious of it or not, but still so gentle it brings fresh tears to Kise’s eyes. His own hands are on Aomine’s sides, trembling and pressing deep enough to leave marks, but Aomine doesn’t complain, he merely holds him up and lets him cry quietly into the side of his warm neck.

“Ahh,” Kise sighs shakily, swallowing as he gradually pulls back. He wants to see Aomine’s face, to press kisses to the backs of his eyelids and the tip of his patrician nose. He watches Aomine study his splotchy expression, his tear-track cheeks and his glass eyes and Kise watches in complete wonder as Aomine’s lips curl up into a familiar smirk and Kise is reminded of the sun rising over regal mountains and turning them into molten gold, shining rays of sunshine flickering through evergreen leaves and casting decorative shadows onto the earth.

“You’re even pretty when you cry, what the fuck.” Aomine intones, laughing and shaking his head as he brings a hand up to tuck some of Kise’s hair behind his ear. Kise’s smile breaks over his face as slow and inimitable as a sunrise—and he wonders if Aomine sees him in the same esoteric, almost celestial way that Kise sees him—and closes his eyes and lets all of his senses focus on the feel of Aomine’s fingers tucking his hair behind his ear, tracing the untouched backside of the shell and then the lobe, fingertip gently flicking at Kise’s hoop earring.

“We should probably talk, huh?” Aomine whispers, fingertips still touching Kise’s skin, the sharp edge of his jaw. Kise brings a hand up to cover Aomine’s, presses his palm and his fingers closer to his skin and rubs his cheek and nose into the touch, breathing deep. When he opens his eyes and studies Aomine’s warm expression, he nods his head.

Aomine steps back through the entryway and holds the door open for Kise as he steps inside and it’s been so long, he thinks, but then he realizes that actually, it really hasn’t. A little over a week, maybe, and Kise feels like there are aspects of Aomine’s apartment he’s never seen before. The last time that Kise had been here feels like months ago, leaves him aching and dried out like watered down embers without a chance for survival, even from a match’s reviving touch.

Aomine’s apartment  _does_  look different, but Kise is beginning to realize that it’s because it is  _clean_. There isn’t a single article of clothing on the ground that Kise can see and there’s a distinctly fresh smell in the air, like cologne. Really nice, expensive cologne. Instantly Kise feels jealousy and pain strike through him, feels his hands curling into fists and his mind thinking of nothing but the possibility of Aomine having some other man in his apartment in the time since they’ve been apart. He turns towards Aomine’s approach, the question already forming on his lips, and stops.

Aomine comes to a stop right in front of him and hands him a steaming mug of what looks like hot chocolate. The breeze of his momentum throws the scent right at Kise and he realizes what a fool he is, that Aomine smells almost exactly like the cologne, that Aomine is  _wearing_  the cologne. Kise lifts his free hand to rub agitatedly at his forehead, thanking Aomine for the drink and moving to sit down in the small living room. He sits on the opposite couch and watches Aomine run a hand through hair that is surprisingly long when Kise is only used to his usual close-crop style.

“Okay, I’m just gonna lay it all out there. I hate talking things out but Satsuki and Midorima are always hounding me about how important communication is. Fucking  _Midorima_. Telling me to be more talkative.” Aomine shakes his head and Kise’s lips curl up into a faintly amused smile, one brow raised slightly more than the other. Aomine takes a deep breath, seeming to prepare himself, and plunges on ahead.

“Okay man, I get why you can’t have the tattoo. But then why make me go through the process of designing it? I worked hard on it. I mean, it was  _yours_.” And there’s obvious emphasis on that fact, that Aomine holds Kise in a special enough regard to make a distinction between the effort he puts into his normal tattoos compared to the effort he’d put into Kise’s. Kise feels freshly shamed; his skin heating as he briefly bows his head.

“I know. I  _know_.” But how can he tell Aomine that he’d been so caught up in the moments he got with Aomine that he hadn’t wanted to throw any sort of kink in their budding relationship—that getting close to Aomine in any way that he could had been more than enough for Kise to want, to  _need_  to keep their novel relationship as uncomplicated as possible. Kise looks up into Aomine’s eyes, jaded and laid bare like stained glass, and knows that the only adequate response is the honest truth, no matter how embarrassing it is to admit.

“Aominecchi, back then, I don’t think you understand. When we first met, you wouldn’t even look at me. But you…you were all I could see. I just wanted any time that I could get with you.”

He thinks,  _before I have to leave_ , and knows that he has to tell Aomine about his impending departure, too. Another dose of water to spill over the vibrant flames of their relationship, probably, but a necessary disclosure, proved now more so than ever. Kise steels himself for the inevitability of it. Aomine is staring incredulously at him when Kise looks back up at him, almost comically so. Kise raises a brow and asks, “What?”

“Do you even remember the first few weeks we met?” Aomine asks, almost sputtering. Kise hesitantly nods his head, giving Aomine a strange look in return.

“Vividly,” he promises, setting his hot chocolate on the edge of the small dining table. Aomine sits back into the couch and laughs, hearty and deep and disbelieving.

“I’m so confused. What are you laughing about?” Kise asks, frowning.

“’You wouldn’t even look at me,’ that’s what you just said.” Aomine smiles at him, slowly shaking his head, as if he literally cannot process the words. “Let me ask you a question, are you out of your goddamn  _mind_?”

Kise hesitates, utterly lost. Aomine had sat back up and is leaning forward with his forearms resting on his thighs, expression intent.

“No?” Kise squeaks, unsure of himself now that he's certain that Aomine is  _laughing_  at him.

Aomine doesn’t hold anything back, his face an open book. “I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. You were like the goddamn sun, bright and hot and impossible not to stare at even though people tell you it’s bad for you.”

Kise sputters out an incredulous laugh of his own, shaking his head and wanting to address how that has to be a lie but he’s too interested in the latter statement to let it go.

Still laughing, he asks, “Aominecchi, who warned you off me? Was it Wakamatsu?”

Aomine grumbles something unintelligible and flushes a little, rolling his eyes.

“He said real people don’t glow. He legitimately didn’t believe you were real for like two weeks. He told me if I fell for you I’d be seduced by an unknown being.” Kise can’t help it: he bursts out laughing before the explanation is even through. He keeps picturing a wary and suspicious Wakamatsu flitting around the shadows of the shop, spreading alien propaganda about Kise to all of his coworkers and telling Aomine that he’s in danger from some ethereal being that comes to them in kitten sweaters and pastel pants.

“Are you serious?” he asks, framing the question around his laughter, his eyes bright like stars.

“Sadly, yes.” Aomine laughs too, lifting a hand to rub at his jaw and hide his smile though Kise can see the amusement bright and alive like fireflies flickering around behind his eyes.

“About both parts, the idiot and his suspicions and me not being able to keep my eyes off of you. I don’t have a damn clue how you came up with the idea that I wouldn’t spare you a glance. I was so pissed after I met you; everywhere I looked I saw you. Every time I went to The Bakery the big moron would offer me a muffin and I’d wonder which was your favorite kind. Even in my work, when people would come for piercings I’d think about your damn hoop and how hot it is. You are fucking everywhere to me.”

Kise’s cheeks flush hot and red and his heart feels like it's trying to escape from his chest and race straight into Aomine’s hands. He laughs again, letting his head fall back and rest against the couch, feeling light and carefree—so utterly opposed to how he’d felt the last week.

Kise thinks it’s only fair to reciprocate Aomine’s blatant honesty, turning his head to stare fondly at a stil- blushing Aomine. “Literally since the moment I met you I’ve been trying to seduce you. You were one tough nut to crack, Aominecchi. Without the tattoo design I didn’t know how to get invited to your place.”

Aomine grumbles, “You could’ve asked.”

“You’re intimidating!” Kise exclaims in a chastising tone, watching Aomine grin. “I didn’t want to make it awkward in The Zone either. What if I weirded you out and kept coming back around? Because Momoi is a dear friend of mine now, ya know. I had every intention of making myself a permanent fixture in your shop. If I’d fucked it up somehow by creeping you out then where would we be?”

“I wonder,” Aomine says sarcastically, giving the current space between them a pointed look. Kise blurts out a surprised laugh, nodding his head in acceptance of that one.

“Yeah, well. I guess we got there anyways.” He admits, smiling self-consciously. Aomine is still smiling at him, his head tilted to the side. He brings his hands up to intertwine behind his head, relaxing back into the couch and closing his eyes.

“So now that that’s cleared up,” he begins, “Why exactly can’t you get the tattoo? I just want to understand where you’re coming from.”

Kise freezes, his mind tripping over the question and the obvious yet irritating answer.  _I do not have control of my own skin_. His work is usually a haven, a kingdom where he is free to be as close to his true self as he can for the lens of a camera without giving away any of the secrets that make him who he is. Yet this tattoo, the mere idea of it, has opened up a whole new side of his work that he’s never paid much attention to before—because he’s never really needed to. He’d never even thought that getting any sort of body modification besides his earring was possible even if he did want more—and the piercing had been done before he was scouted and was a part of his initial showcasing, anyways.

Realizing that once he’d expressed an interest in getting permanent ink set into his skin to Kobori and had been rejected without a second thought for the sake of his deeply ingrained image as the unmarked Golden Boy on a national scale, he’d encountered a powerful level of dissonance. Wanting something that you can’t have always makes that certain something more enticing, more desirable. In fact, one might argue that it makes the unreachable the most enticing thing in the world until you either pursue it at your own detriment or forever resent never going after it. Kise comes to the conclusion pretty early on that he is unsettled with the fact that his own dissension is in relation to something that he wants to put on his own body, literally into his own skin.

He doesn’t have control of his own skin. That all-encompassing freedom he usually feels in front of a camera lens disperses and leaves him feeling caged in his own body, trapped and unable to move how he wants. He’s been thinking about it a lot ever since he’d first been shot down, and even more so considering his most recent circumstances with Aomine and the magnificently crafted art he’d prepared especially for Kise.

It hadn’t occurred to Kise that he’d already rejected the reality of his body being his own personal prison and had teetered over the edge into the territory of rebellion until the question rolled off of Aomine’s tongue and fell heavily into the space between them like a stone.

His body  _is_  his own. He can do whatever he damn well pleases with it and no one can tell him otherwise because it’s  _his_. The smooth, blended tones of the sunset Aomine had crafted for him over several days’ time falls into place seamlessly in his mind and he feels the corners of his lips curving up into a genuinely joyful smile, his shoulders pulling back and leaving his chest more open than before, as if nonexistent wings spread wide behind him in liberation.

“I’m gonna get the tattoo.” He says, tasting the words for the first time. He refocuses on Aomine, still beaming, and realizes that after all that he’s told Aomine about not being able to get the tattoo, this sudden confession will seem unfounded and most probably like a waste of time.

“I mean, I’m really not supposed to get any sort of body modification because of my job. I’ve been forbidden from doing so. I have a persona of being this 'Golden Boy' who’s sweet and innocent and in the media’s sense, tattoos and piercings directly oppose that image. But I’ve just realized that it’s bullshit.” He looks into Aomine’s eyes and doesn’t blink for a long moment, feeling the flames tracing lines through his veins under his skin and lighting brightest behind his eyes.

“I want that tattoo. I’m going to  _get it_.” The words taste like freedom pooling out of his skin, through every pore, releasing the tension that had held him locked into place.

Aomine, for his part, does not give him a critical look or even the eye roll that Kise had been expecting. Instead, he just raises a brow, rolling Kise’s words around in his mind and getting a feel for the absolution of them. “What about all that stuff you were just talking about? Work stuff.”

“In the words of someone I hold dear, ‘ _fuck_  that.’” Kise positively preens when Aomine appraises him with a smirk, both brows rising up towards his hairline and slowly nodding his head. He shrugs his heavy shoulders, bends his neck a little.

“Stickin’ it to the man,” he chuckles. It’s easy, no questions asked, no doubt in his voice. “I can get behind that.”

“It’s not just to stick it to the man. You need to know that it has so much more meaning to me than that.” Kise explains quietly, picking himself up from the couch and moving until he's seated right beside Aomine, their thighs touching. He turns to face him, traces his sharp features and his dark skin tone with loving eyes, and waits for Aomine to focus back on him before speaking.

“It means something to me, here.” He picks Aomine’s hand up from his lap and presses his big palm over his own heart, letting him feel the gentle methodical push that thrums against his skin in a calm rhythm. Aomine seems a bit frazzled by the gesture and the meaning behind the words, carefully pulling his hand back and dragging it once over his face.

“Yeah, I get it.” He says, embarrassed. After a moment he turns back to Kise and there’s a measure of mischief in his eyes that has Kise sitting up a little straighter just for the sake of it.

“You should totally get something insane like a facial tattoo or nipple piercings.  _Really_  rock the boat with one of those,” he laughs, his blue eyes alive with mirth. Kise joins his laughter, thinking about how he’d look with some trivial design inked into the side of his face for the rest of his life. He snorts at the mental image and knows that Aomine is thinking along the same lines, though a significant part of him is for some indescribable reason stuck back on the mention of nipple piercings.

When his laughter settles and he feels Aomine lean back against the couch again, resting his eyes and his neck, oddly peaceful, Kise looks at him from under his lashes and studies his sharp features. He glances down to the ink on Aomine’s arms, bold and bright and as apparent as ever, with starkly defined lines sculpted in elegant strokes. He studies the tattoos running up and over what Kise can see of Aomine’s shoulders, the ones that just barely touch upon his strong neck, and then the multiple piercings scattered throughout his ears. Kise can name every one of those piercings now and he knows every tattoo that is on Aomine’s body, can tell you where they are and which ones mean more than others.

If Kise were a gambling man, he’d wager that he knows just as much about Aomine’s body as Aomine himself, though he’s still a work in progress. Kise is too, especially now that he is definitely going to allow Aomine to needle permanent ink into his skin. The fact of it settles in his chest like a blanket as light as air, tucking around the corners of his heart until it’s a part of him, as certain as his own breaths. It makes a balanced sort of sense, though, that the both of them know one another’s body as well as their own, even as they continue to transform, whether from age, activity, ink, or steel. No matter what they put into their bodies and what their bodies give in return, the fact still remains that they both hold the blueprints of one another’s skin.

Looking at Aomine and all of the modifications he wears on his skin with pride and adoration makes something in Kise’s heart flutter and settle, a final piece in a puzzle he hadn’t even realized he was putting together.

He thinks,  _I wonder what it’d be like to have pierced nipples_.

Smiling wider and tentatively letting his body lean towards Aomine’s reclined position, he lets out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding as Aomine’s arm comes around his shoulders and pulls him in close to snuggle against his side. Kise curls his legs up and faces Aomine completely, resting his cheek against his chest and nuzzling into him like a kitten. He feels Aomine dip his chin down to place a doting kiss on the top of his head and suddenly remembers all of the criticism he’d received in The Zone. He looks up at Aomine with a suspicious expression, which he almost breaks out of to laugh when Aomine glances down at him with a soft smile that quickly morphs into a scowl upon seeing Kise’s skeptical look.

“What now?” he asks, gruff.

“Don’t I smell?” Kise is straightforward, watching every one of Aomine’s expressions. The taller of the two gives him an incredulous look and leans down to sniff lightly at Kise’s hair.

“No?” he responds, and amazingly enough he sounds completely sincere to Kise’s ears. He squints at him. “What? You really don’t. There’s definitely less of your usual,” Aomine gestures around in the air with his free hand, trying to catch the word he’s looking for.

“Fruitiness.” He concludes, grinning down at Kise and pulling him tighter against his body when he guesses, accurately, that Kise is about to pull away with a haughty sniff.

“What do you mean fruitiness?! Are you calling me a fruit?” he demands, expertly hiding his amusement behind his snooty pout. A look of sudden clarity and excitement crosses over Aomine’s expression and even before he opens his mouth to speak, Kise knows he’s going to groan at the imminent comment.

“Not just any fruit,” Aomine snorts, already laughing at his own joke. “A real  _peach_.”

“Wow.” Kise drones, dragging the word out and rolling his eyes. Aomine chortles.

“Come on, you know what I mean. You have fruity shampoos. You just smell like you’ve cut down on those.”

“I am  _filthy_.” Kise exclaims, exasperated and laughing at the absurdity of Aomine literally not being able to smell the difference. But then he remembers the usual state of Aomine’s room, of his  _place_ , and everything sort of falls into place and makes a little more sense.

Kise gasps, dramatically placing his hands over his eyes. “Oh my God Aominecchi, you’re so used to living in filth you can’t even recognize lesser filth!”

“Wait what? How the fuck did this turn on me?” Aomine looks adorably confused as Kise continues to laugh at him, feeling light and bubbly against his side. He leans up and forward and places a kiss against the tip of Aomine’s chin, bumping his forehead lightly against his jawline before settling back in against his side.

“Well you really don’t seem to mind my ‘filth’ very much, do you? Considering you’re wearing my shirt  _and_  my hoodie.” Aomine says from over his head, sounding smug and self-satisfied. Kise freezes, slowly looking down at his attire to see that he is, in fact, wearing one of Aomine’s shirts and hoodies that he had apparently left in Kise’s hotel room. Kise had been in such a hurry earlier that he hadn’t even looked at what he’d put on, had simply grabbed the nearest articles of clothing and ran out the door.

Even though they do in fact smell pretty bad, he doesn’t care because underneath them he smells pretty bad too. So Kise doesn’t pay it much mind, he simply snuggles in as close to Aomine as he can, knees resting against his abdomen and forehead pressed against the side of Aomine’s throat. The cold air seeps through the windows and the walls, breaching the insides of Aomine’s apartment with ease. Kise has chills on his arms and neck and Aomine is curling in on Kise more and more to absorb his body heat.

Eventually they find themselves lying down on the couch spooning each other, with Kise’s back pressed against the warmth of Aomine’s wide chest. Aomine’s socks are warm, too, and Kise tangles their feet together and lets himself succumb to the comfort and the peace of being able to lay there with Aomine wrapped so closely around him that it‘s hard to tell whose extremity belongs to who. For the first time, Kise finds that he quite likes the idea of being close enough to someone that what is theirs slowly becomes his and vice versa, and even more than that, that he can lay in the shelter of Aomine’s arms and feel like they are one in the same, two people fueled by two hearts pounding out the exact same rhythm, a symphony of love and passion and trust.

Kise falls asleep in Aomine’s arms and dreams of the effervescent surface of the ocean as it reflects the sun’s rays up into the multitude of clouds, casting the sky in shades of gold and cerulean.

 

✧

 

Hours later after both of them have moved to Aomine's bedroom and slept long enough for the sun to come out, Kise wakes up to the feeling of soft, warm petals pressing against the wing of his shoulder blade, sending chills over the expanse of his body. He hums appreciatively as Aomine continues to kiss his skin, moving achingly slowly across the stretch of Kise’s back to trace kisses along Kise’s hairline, his nose stirring the baby hairs there. Aomine’s hips and groin and legs are all still pressed impossibly close to Kise’s, with one foot wound over both of Kise’s and his erection pushing up against Kise’s tailbone. The solid declaration of it is enough to rouse Kise from the shadows of sleep and inch him into the light of consciousness, of awareness.

When his wits are completely about him he pushes back against Aomine with a subtlety neither of them falls for, but both of them appreciate. He moves his hips in undulations not unlike that of the systematic curling of waves against the shore, teasing and tantalizing and making Aomine’s breaths crest against the back of his neck like early morning fog shrouding the iridescent shoreline.

“Morning,” he whispers, the air in Aomine’s room so cold his breath is nearly visible. Aomine hums an indiscernible response against Kise’s nape and wraps an arm up and over Kise’s waist, his warm fingertips resting lightly against Kise’s navel—a barely-felt promise. His dangling fingertips make contact with Kise’s navel like a stone skipping over the frozen surface of a lake, each touch bringing about a novel hitch in Kise’s throat and a strained pulse through his veins.

Kise marvels at the warmth of Aomine’s skin and the way he never seems to submit to the icy tangents of the weather here in Washington, bringing his own freezing fingertips up to press against the heat of Aomine’s big palm. He can’t remember a time when he’d come to Aomine and found his touch anything but electric, searing through him like lightning and leaving behind the flickering burn of embers craving of his touch immediately thereafter.

When Kise had first met Aomine, he’d seemed a dark tempestuous gale perpetually on the cusp of controlled and feral, moments away from bursting at the seams. The only visible brightness in him was the ink stained into his skin, nearly fluorescent trails winding up his arms and leading into the recesses of his collarbones and down over his chest and abdomen. Imayoshi always says that the two of them standing beside one another is a clichéd clash of elements—light and dark, rays and shadows, sun and moon.

At the time, it had been clear which of them the shop believed to embody the elements of light and sunshine and which was moon shade personified. His own identifiers had not surprised him, not since he had become nationally known as the Golden Boy. He understands the comparisons and to some extent, he can see them and accept them as well.

But to look at Aomine and see anything other than the incomprehensible depths of white-hot light and power that constitute the sun is ludicrous.

Aomine is the sun and Kise’s wants nothing more than to burn beside him until the end of time.

Sometimes Kise can barely look at him for how fiercely his passions shine through his eyes like wildfire raging across the endless seas of his irises, defying logic and physics and truth. He can silence a room with a single look and his voice is the darkest pit of thunder in an endlessly raging storm. There is liquid fire in his veins and every touch holds coal-seared embers in the tips of his fingers and Kise finds that he’d never realized that one day he might ever crave the lick of flames over his skin like he does now.

Aomine’s teeth come down and pinch at the side of Kise’s neck as his fingertips trace the rim of Kise’s navel once, twice, before slipping over his waist to push his own sweatpants down over his hips, his knees, his ankles. Aomine kicks them off with a little bit of a struggle and then his hand, hot and big and possessive, is on Kise’s hip, burning into the skin like a freshly inked tattoo. He pushes at Kise’s pants until they, too, are at his ankles. Aomine sits up and helps him flick them off and onto the ground before he comes back and presses his wide chest against the bare skin of Kise’s back.

Kise is shivering, trying to wrap his mind around the contrast of his freezing front side and the blazing heat of Aomine’s skin pressed from his shoulders to the pads of his feet, all the way along his body. Aomine’s breath is hot, too, and it disperses against Kise’s neck and brings blood into his cheeks, changing his complexion from ashen to rosy in moments.

Kise hisses when Aomine’s knee carefully pushes between Kise’s legs, pushing forward until his cock is resting against the delicate curve of Kise’s ass. Aomine brings his fingers up and over the sharp edge of Kise’s hip until his fingers are so close to where Kise needs them to be that he moans in anticipation, his hips flexing backwards keenly. Everything Aomine does is slow and torturous and Kise feels himself at the crest of an incredibly steep, slippery slope he isn’t entirely certain he’ll ever come down from.

Aomine slips a finger inside and Kise nearly comes off the bed, his hand pushing down against the mattress as he tries to push his hips back even further, wanting more than just Aomine’s finger. He keens and begs and pants like he’s been waiting his entire life just for Aomine’s middle finger to join his pointer, uncaring of the desperation laced so blatantly through his hitched breaths and his low moans. Aomine isn’t even _moving_  them, not really, not when he’s curling his fingers in a gentle massage when he could’ve been  _thrusting_.

“Fuck,” Kise grunts, unable to hold the expletive back. He doesn’t know how long Aomine holds him there with his head pillowed on Aomine’s bicep and Aomine’s hand holding him back against his chest, while his right hand continues to torment him with how gentle he’s being. Kise begs for so long his throat gets a little sore and he can barely breathe around the small keening moans slipping through his lips, needy and desperate for more than the light friction Aomine is teasing him with.

By the time Aomine has three fingers inside of him Kise doesn’t know if he is ever going to get off or if he is ever going to be able to come down from this halfway point Aomine is holding him at with three fingers. Kise’s cock is painfully hard and straining against his navel but every time he moves his free hand in hopes of offering that finishing touch himself, Aomine jerks against him and growls, reprimanding him until his hand finds purchase back in the sheets again, leaving his cock untouched.

It doesn’t take long for Kise to realize that this is, in Aomine’s own way, punishment.

Bringing Kise so close to the edge on just his fingers and not touching Kise’s cock, not letting him touch it himself, moving with painstaking slowness and exhibiting utter control over every part of Kise’s body while he is behind him, unseen and unheard in the shadows except for his heavy breaths against the back of Kise’s neck and the occasional deep-throated groan whenever Kise’s inner muscles constrict around his fingers, it’s all a part of the same grand plan—to make Kise suffer in the only way that Aomine feels is safe and acceptable within the parameters of their relationship.

If Kise wasn’t so frustrated at being so close but so distressingly far from release, if he wasn’t so exhausted from pushing back and riding against Aomine’s fingers like they are the last three tickets to heaven left on the planet and Kise needs every single one of them to get there, and if Kise hasn’t ever needed someone to push inside of him and ride him heavy and hard into the mattress like he needs Aomine to at that exact moment, he would have admitted to being entirely in favor of Aomine’s chosen brand of punishment in a heartbeat.

“Please,  _please_ ,” he moans, begging fruitlessly for what he knows he won’t receive until Aomine is completely ready to give. Unable to stop himself, he releases the bunched fabric of Aomine’s sheet and brings his hand back and around until he is grasping the muscles of Aomine’s ass and pushing him forward until Aomine’s cock is pressed snug between Kise’s tailbone and his own navel. Aomine hisses and his fingers instantly begin to piston, almost automatically, the muscles of his arm straining and flexing as he finally brings Kise up another level.

“Ahh,” Kise moans, loud and long and  _good_  because anything is better than being held in that impenetrable balance between pleasure and numbness. His body is no longer chilled but rather burning from the inside out, starting at Aomine’s fingers and resonating up through his body to wrap around his heart and out of every pore until he can feel little drops of sweat beading on his neck, hot and slick and wet.

Kise happily fucks himself down and back onto Aomine’s fingers until he feels the very first hint of tingling in his abdomen and releases a broken moan in response. One moment he’s smiling, closing his eyes and letting himself be consumed with the feeling of Aomine’s fingers fucking into him hard and fast—when just earlier every movement he’d made had been unbearably slow and tender—and the next Aomine’s fingers are no longer inside of him and he’s left bare and tiptoeing a precipice he doesn’t want to fall over alone.

He’s about to curse at Aomine, to demand to know what the fuck he thinks he’s doing bringing him so close only to completely back off while Kise’s embers cool when he feels Aomine’s hand—the one that had been inside of him—come around and grasp Kise’s cock. He straightens, his words getting stuck in his throat as he swallows them back down and Aomine makes up for the drop by working him tirelessly. Kise’s hand is still on Aomine’s ass and with every unconscious thrust of his hips he’s pulling Aomine closer, still wanting Aomine to experience pleasure even while Kise is the one who has been tortured for the better half of the morning.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Aomine suddenly says, his deep voice rumbling right next to Kise’s ear and sending heat in coursing waves through Kise’s body to crash against the insides of his abdomen like electrical currents. Kise is surprised that he doesn’t come right then and there, with Aomine’s lips against his ear, his voice thrumming down Kise’s body and playing him like a well-loved and finely tuned instrument. But Aomine’s grip, strong as it is, hasn’t moved from the base of Kise’s cock.

“More,” Kise hedges, turning over his shoulder and looking up through his lashes for the first time to see Aomine’s eyes just as heavy, staring right back. Something between them seems to fall into place, simple and easy, a switch flicked or a knob turned; the moment Kise’s eyes meet Aomine’s, his hand leaves Kise’s cock completely. He brings it up to apply slight pressure on Kise’s jaw, turning his face so that Aomine can lean over his shoulder and begin to lavish his lips with generous attention.

The position makes Kise’s neck ache a little but the kiss is so ardent that Kise is too distracted trying to keep up with the demanding pull of Aomine’s lips to even care. Aomine moans into his mouth when Kise’s tongue meets his and then again, when Kise pushes his ass back to rub against Aomine’s straining erection. Kise’s cock is painful and the head is swollen and there have been so many times where he has gotten so close to coming he can already see the stars on the backs of his eyelids but all of that is an echo in the distance as Aomine sucks on his bottom lip and bites down, making Kise yelp.

“Bully!” he whines, trying to sound playful but he’s just so exhausted he completely misses his mark. Aomine’s responding hum is amused, his tongue slipping out to wash away the pain from the corner of Kise’s lips before he’s sucking lightly on Kise’s top lip, not giving him a single moment to relax.

Aomine is by far the most skilled kisser that Kise has ever encountered. He is attentive and possessive and there is no pulling away to catch his breath; with Aomine you either devour or get devoured.

Kise is so distracted by Aomine’s kiss that he doesn’t even feel Aomine positioning his hips or the pressure of his cock until Aomine is already in the process of pushing inside of him. He moans straight from his core against Aomine’s lips, his heart thundering in his chest at the realization that Aomine is finally,  _finally_  inside of him. It seems as well that Kise isn’t the only one tired of waiting any longer as Aomine immediately falls into a grueling pace, holding Kise back against him as he thrusts into him over and over.

Kise has to break away from Aomine’s lips; there is lightning pulsing through his veins and his heart is drilling a hole in his chest and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, every exhale is a moan coming straight from the core of him and Aomine is stretching him wide and it’s the most overwhelming experience Kise has ever had in his life. He doesn’t try to wrap his hand around his own cock, he knows better by now, knows that there is something about this morning, about this sex that Aomine needs to have control over.

Kise can feel it in the air, in the static electricity building up from the friction of their sweaty bodies rubbing together in pounding harmony; something is changing between them and it started with Kise’s acceptance of Aomine’s control in this moment.

Aomine’s hips are slamming so hard against Kise’s tailbone he’s certain he’s going to bruise and the thought makes his cock twitch and his hands clench in the sheets. Aomine’s grunts are becoming as disjointed as his rhythm—sloppy and inexperienced but bringing Kise right up to speed along with him—and just knowing that something about the tender way that Aomine has edged Kise around his orgasm all morning enables Aomine to revalidate the reality and the exclusivity of their bond; it has Kise crying out his name, his first name,  _Daiki_ , with a blur of white-hot stars flickering in front of his eyes as he is finally overcome with an incredibly long-awaited and powerful orgasm.

The moment Aomine hears his first name in Kise’s strained, keening voice he's a goner; the first exultant rush of water pushing over the cliff’s edge, a scattered and glistening freefall into open space. He closes his eyes and sees nothing but pure light as he thrusts once more with finality, coming inside of Kise with a low groan through his teeth and dropping his head to rest his forehead against the flushed skin of Kise’s nape once more. They both lay there, intertwined and panting, bodies hot and slick with sweat; overheated like sleek cars on molten tracks in the peak of summer and feeling just as triumphant as the tallest place on the podium.

Aomine curls around Kise with a level of caution only the growth of vines over the expanse of solid stone architecture can mimic; every movement deliberate and as though he doesn’t quite believe that Kise will stay. Kise, for his part, doesn’t move a muscle, lets the gentle progression of Aomine’s longer, stronger limbs embrace him and pull him flush against the heat of his slick chest, biting his lip and holding back exultant tears.

Nothing about the air in the room has changed substantially, but there is a heaviness to it that presses both of them deeper into the mattress, keeps them still and breathless even after the pace of their hearts settle back into comfortable rhythms. Kise inhales and feels the scrape of the cold air dragging against his airway like he is cresting a mountain 6,000 feet into the sky, like his human body is trying to prove to the world that if he can’t fly he can still touch incredible heights, even while anchored to the earth.

Kise falls asleep, dreaming above the clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading! ♥


	10. Chapter 10

After waking up and having to sternly reject Aomine’s offer for what Kise is certain would’ve been another round of incredible sex, and instead heading back to his apartment in clothes that smell worse than is probably legal, Kise finds himself back inside The Zone.

Only this time he isn’t hovering by the front desk, chatting Midorima’s ear off while he pushes the frames of his glasses up his nose and continues flipping idly through the pages of a miscellaneous magazine; he isn’t sitting with Momoi as she sketches ideas for new tattoos while the two of them discuss any number of things that are salient topics of interest; he isn’t even helping Wakamatsu move boxes and organize in the back room while receiving his snide remarks and sending some of his own back in return.

Kise is in Aomine’s tattooing chair and he is sweating an unsavory amount for the currently frigid and windy weather blowing into the shop every time a customer opens the door. It is so cold he is no longer certain if the chills under his skin and the barren bubbling wasteland his stomach has become are because of how utterly cold it is or how terrifying Aomine suddenly looks preparing his tattoo gun and ink supplies.

He's been explaining the entire tattooing process to Kise for what feels like an eternity now, not even pausing in his explanation of sterile technique when he approaches Kise to clean and disinfect the intended area of his skin. He goes on and on about the importance of sterile technique and materials, of washing his hands, of disinfecting the area, and finally snaps on some black latex gloves with a little too much dramatic flair for Kise's liking.

Momoi is standing beside him, a hand rubbing soothingly over his back as Wakamatsu shoots taunts at him from across the store. Aomine's still talking and he knows it's important but Kise is just too distracted by the way Aomine’s biceps are flexing every time he lifts the tattoo gun, the way every move he makes is deliberate and systematic and easy, to pay too much attention.

“Oi!” Aomine snaps, turning over his shoulder and glaring at Kise with enough fire in his eyes to stun Kise out of whatever distracted state he’d fallen into.

“Are you listening to me?” he demands, finally turning back to face him. Kise swallows, heavily, and feels himself grinning sheepishly.

“Sorry Aominecchi, I got distracted.” He admits, sitting up straighter and putting on his best attentive expression as Aomine very nearly growls at him.

“This is fucking  _important_.” Aomine insists, emphasizing his words by lifting the tattoo gun up in front of Kise’s face in a very pointed manner. Kise feels heat pulse through his veins and yet at the same time an icy stillness that makes him shiver, his teeth coming down gently to bite at his lower lip as he nods his head, ready to listen.

“You haven’t taken any medication right? No aspirin, no painkillers?” Aomine raises a brow at him, tilting his head to see Kise’s expression clearly from under the slight coverage his fringe offers.

He glances up and meets Aomine’s eyes clearly, flicking his hair behind his ear and answering, “No.”

“No allergies?”

“No.” Aomine waits a moment, a deliberate pause, relaxing his arms from their position folded across his chest and letting them hang loose at his sides. His expression melts into something bordering on intimate, something concerned and open and honest; Kise is certain that this expression is meant solely for him, even in a room full of friends.

“And you’re sure you want to do this?” Aomine asks, and there’s no bias in his voice, no pressure to say yes, no sense of pressure waiting to fall behind a no like a superior’s reprimand; it simply  _is_.

Kise stares unflinchingly into Aomine’s eyes, his lips curling up at the edges in admiration before opening up around his answer as he says, “Yes.”

Aomine gives him a moment to taste the word, the finality of it, the promise of it. When he moves back to settle the gun comfortably into his hand and sits carefully on the edge of his seat, every movement gives Kise time to breathe, time to think.

And he does. His brain is a maelstrom of thoughts about his decision to actually get this tattoo, about the consequences of it, but there’s an air of inexpressible relief coursing through him and working against the storm to clear away the cobwebs of questions and uncertainties. He’s taking this seriously, diving headfirst into it with all consequences alive and beating against his brain.

But then Aomine turns back to him and the look on his face, the brightness of his eyes—alive with genuine pleasure at getting to be the one to do this for Kise—it soothes his mind and his thundering heart like a lullaby. Every part of his body settles under that glance and he feels his shoulders sag with relief as he lifts his left arm over his chest and rests his left hand on his right shoulder, giving Aomine plenty of room for the stencil to fit into place. He’d shown Kise the sketch on some special thermal paper before he’d even taken his seat, though he’d done more explaining of what he planned to do than actual showing. Even if Kise hadn’t looked through Aomine’s portfolio dozens of times before, he’d still trust him with etching permanent ink into his body.

Aomine has steady hands and a huge heart and Kise trusts him like he’s never trusted anyone before in his life.

He stretches his body wide and opens up the section of his ribcage just under and to the side of his heart, closes his eyes, and waits for Aomine to leave his mark.

 

✧

  
  
Aomine has the day off.

As it turns out, so does Kise. When they'd realized that they were both free to do whatever they wanted, it'd been effortless the way they both decided the day should be spent inside of The Bakery with Kagami and Kuroko. They'd stopped by The Zone for a brief chat with some of their friends before heading next door and finding a comfortable booth right up against the glass paneling.

For about the first hour, they simply talked in relaxed comfort with the every now and again interruption from Kagami or Kuroko. But then, just like the inevitability of a car stalling when out of gas, Kise's exhausted body started to show in the heaviness of his eyelids, the slump of his shoulders, the slow rhythm of his breathing. Before he even knew it, he'd fallen asleep right there in The Bakery, leaning partly on the table and partly on the wall with his long legs outspread over the expanse of the booth and Aomine still sitting across from him, fiddling with his phone.

By the time Kise wakes up, he isn't certain of how long he's been sleeping or if Aomine is even still with him. Drowzy and feeling as though the gravity in the room had somehow increased its exerting pressure, he peeks a single eye open and feels his heart give a gentle toss in his chest.

Aomine is still in The Bakery with him, only now he has a steaming mug of coffee in front of him and his laptop at his fingertips. He’s slouching onto the tabletop of their booth, careless of his table manners as his biceps and elbows support him. Kise catches the tail-end of Kagami's voice shouting a snide remark about table etiquette and recognizes his tone, remembers it from when he was on the precipice between asleep and awake, and he knows without having to guess that every time Kagami came out from the back room he'd thrown a snarky comment Aomine's way.

Kise decides that his amusement coupled with the exhaustion lacing through his veins is a comfort he doesn't want to disturb right now, so he settles back against the wall and merely continues to listen to Kagami and Aomine bicker.

He hears Aomine give as good as he gets but in an offhanded manner that startles Kagami back into the kitchen more often than not. Kuroko is undoubtedly working the register so there’s really no need for Kagami to keep coming out to the front anyways, so after he gets in a few sharp jibes and is befuddled enough with Aomine’s offhanded manner to feel weird about it, he slinks away to make more seasonal cupcakes—even though Christmas is still over a month away. Kuroko, on the other hand, casts vaguely curious glances in his direction but mostly just ignores him.

When Kise hears Aomine hiss he peers over at him once more, eyes cracked open just enough to see him and remain incognito in his half-sleep. Aomine has a hand around his mug of coffee and lifts it to his mouth once again, this time blowing lightly before taking a sip. Kise knows without having to ask that It’s more creamer than actual coffee, just the way Aomine likes it. He watches Aomine set the mug back down and pull the edges of his navy blue coat closer around him to ward off the chill, knows that for once Aomine is probably glad for the heavy material of it and as such, forgiving of the tightness and the strain of the material over his wide shoulders.

Kise purses his lips and suddenly realizes that Aomine looks  _good_  today; more than good, but actually  _stylish_. He's wearing black-framed reading glasses and his navy coat is something one might pull straight out of Kise's own closet, and upon opening his hotel door and finding Aomine standing there in front of him, he remembers that Aomine had even cuffed the bottoms of his jeans. He's still wearing his fuck-you slip-ons but at least the color scheme sort of matches; the outfit as a whole is more than Kise had ever imagined coming from Aomine, anyways, so he counts it as a true victory.

A small smile finds it's way over his lips and he has to temper it down lest Aomine realize that he's not still counting sheep but is in fact gradually waking up from his quick catnap.

On any other day Kise would have felt terrible for falling asleep during their time together—they had so little of it as it is—but today he feels content and maybe even a little like he deserves that nap. He's waiting for something and it's left anticipation running laps around his circulatory system, just under his skin, and he wants to see Aomine's reaction firsthand. But even more than that, he doesn't feel bad about falling asleep on Aomine in this one instance because it's early enough that the sky is still dark and the sun hasn't conquered the mountains yet—Aomine's favorite time to visit The Bakery.

Even though Aomine is familiar enough with The Bakery to know what times are the least crowded and therefore the best times for him to hang out, Kise knows that he still finds Sunday mornings before the sun has even readied itself for morning to be his favorite times. Contrary to popular belief, Aomine  _is_  able to wake up early and still be productive with only a marginal increase of grumpiness to his usual fresh distaste.

Momoi had told Kise early on that Aomine never works Sunday mornings before the sun is up, regardless of the client or the demand. But Kise had found out all on his own that God-awfully early Sunday mornings belong to Aomine and his reserved spot at The Bakery; tucked away in the corner right by the window where the lighting is brightest despite the weather’s circumstances.

Intimacy and trust allowed for Aomine to share things like this with Kise; at first Aomine gave Kise the knowledge, told him about his routine and what it meant to him, and then later, when they'd shared more than just the comfort and heat of their bodies but the thickly corded strands of their hearts, then and only then did Aomine let Kise come with him.

Kise learned that when others are either at church or sleeping off wicked Saturday-night-Sunday-morning hangovers, Aomine is sipping creamer-coffee in front of his laptop screen, checking his coveted social media sites and any relevant news articles he feels are poignant at the time. He doesn’t broadcast that he’s a blogger—that isn’t really something that he wants everyone to know—but much to Kise's amused surprise, it turns out that Aomine is actually a pretty big deal in some Internet social spheres.

For instance, his personal fitness blog where he focuses on explaining different ways to properly train, stretch, and build up one’s body—solely for the purpose of helping amateur sports lovers in their journey towards desired stardom—had somehow skyrocketed seemingly overnight into something big enough that he is now known as a sort of sports guru. Kise had made the mistake of laughing about that early on and had paid the price in full; he still can't remember a time when his body had ever been more sore.

Aomine's other popular site makes much more sense, at least in Kise's mind, because it’s all about tattoos and body modifications—which are obviously right down Aomine's alley. He posts original sketches and on some accounts when he is involved with a client with a special story behind the ink, he’ll detail an explanation of how those particular tattoos affected his style and his passion; heightening his love for his calling and bringing him near tears on a couple of really understandable occasions, which were endlessly embarrassing for him to remember and recount to Kise, but he did so, nonetheless.

He peppers each blog with random personal posts that are usually about basketball and the times when he used to play; sometimes getting more nostalgic than he’d even realized he felt. Mostly, though, he sticks to what he knows and somehow people respond and are receptive to his sports and art-related advice. He did admit to Kise that he was a little miffed, however, that he never got requests for sexual advice, considering how much porn he reblogs.

When Kise had expressed slight disappointment that Aomine would give so much attention to such things, Aomine had flapped his hand and admitted that he prefers to spend his Sunday mornings browsing the news and sometimes working on paperwork, brushing up on his techniques and sanitation knowledge whilst browsing inspiring art just for the fun of it. Kise had been skeptical, of course he had, but there'd been no hitch in Aomine's voice, no waver in his gaze, and Kise believed him wholeheartedly.

It is easy to trust Aomine.

Another snide remark from Kagami's corner distracts Kise from his thoughts for a moment before everything falls back into relative silence; he listens to the wind howl outside and the splattering symphony of raindrops pounding against the glass at his back; a song he’s so deeply attuned to he barely offers it more than a responding glance.

“Hell of a storm,” Kagami calls from the back, voice booming through the shop with ease. Besides Kise and Aomine, there are two other people in the shop, both of which appear to be university students either studying for exams or furiously working on research papers. Neither of the two glance up at Kagami’s voice, which makes Kise think they’re either educationally desperate or used to him. Either way, Kise and Aomine ignore him too.

The rain doesn’t seem to bother Aomine, doesn’t even faze him. Both The Bakery and The Zone are built strong and won’t submit to the thrashing of the weather despite its gradually increasing ferocity, so Kise thinks there isn't really any need to worry anyways.

Everything seems normal to him, everything falling into place just like any other Sunday morning with Aomine across from him. Aomine's coffee is hot enough to burn his taste buds, he is cold enough to have a constant shiver running over him even though his skin still somehow feels hot to the touch, and the clouds outside are low enough to make visibility fairly dangerous for drivers and even pedestrians. Everything is familiar and Kise watches Aomine take it all in with a sigh, relaxing back into his booth and continuing to groggily surf the Internet.

Kise feels that growing monster of anticipation under his skin breathe anew, icy and shocking to his system, and he knows that the thing he's been waiting for all morning is finally here. He's a wonderful actor so putting on the act that he's still totally locked in the grasp of unconsciousness is all too easy for him to execute.

He's thankful that his bangs are in his face, further obscuring the way that he's peering through his lashes to watch Aomine's expression, utterly awake. He watches Aomine with sharp eyes, barely blinking, as he glances haphazardly over some miscellaneous website and  _finally_  sees it; Kise imagines the title is written in some grandiose font, talking about the sun and offering a link to the magazine cover. Maybe Kise's name is even spelled out with big block letters; maybe there's an attached link for the entire spread.

By the way Aomine's eyes widen and his mouth drops open just slightly, Kise knows that he's seeing the cover, that Kise's own nefarious smirk is staring back at Aomine. One of Aomine's hands unconsciously reaches for his Eye Wonder black-framed glasses and slides them slowly onto the bridge of his nose so that he can get a clearer look.

It’s not Kise's mischievous smirk that has Aomine's undivided attention, though, but the fact that Kise is shirtless and that his tattoo is the blatant focus of the shot.

Aomine glances across the table at Kise, seeming to remember that the man himself is right there with him, and Kise hopes and prays he doesn't notice that he's awake. He doesn't, thankfully, and instead rests his right elbow on the table, his mouth coming to rest against the backs of his fingers as he clicks on the spread. Kise watches with rapt attention as Aomine's eyes flicker over every picture, taking in every detail and the noticeable focus on Kise’s new body art, before he goes back through them all and seems to take his time. Kise knows that there are some quotes that are sure to have made it into the corners of the pages that might make Aomine flush to read, mostly because they're overly praiseworthy of the skill of the tattoo artist and Kise's delight at having decided to get it done.

Kise had seen the pictures, of course he had, and the tattoo looks as beautiful as it had when Aomine had last touched his tattoo gun to Kise’s skin to complete it, when he’d been blending the last bit of the sunrise out against the skin just beneath Kise’s muscular peck. The bright photoshoot lights and the flashes of the camera had emphasized the brightness of the vibrant colors even more, made it glow and emphasized the golden hues Aomine had spent hours getting just right for Kise’s complexion.

Aomine had seen several of Kise’s photoshoots before, though he only admits to some of them—he has his pride, after all. He knows enough about Kise and his patterns when he’s in front of a camera to be able to sense that in these newest of shots, something is different. He knows Kise is versatile like no one’s business, but this is a whole new level that even Kise has never hit before; every look and every smile has a promise behind it that Aomine  _must_  know is meant for him. It’s the same look Kise gives him when they’re in Aomine’s bed and their limbs are tied up in knots and Kise says  _please_.

Aomine shifts in his seat, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and clearing his throat. With this photoshoot, Kise had hoped to set off a domino effect; one that was premeditated and would show Aomine his intentions through their recent conversations.

_Aominecchi, I do a lot of shirtless photoshoots._

_Aominecchi, this is a pretty noticeable spot, right?_

_Aominecchi, everyone is going to see it!_

_Aominecchi, what should I say?_

Each question had only served to confuse Aomine even more, considering that for the most part the answers had felt obvious. Of course he knows that Kise does shirtless photoshoots, of course the tattoo is noticeable—it is a fairly large piece—and isn’t it obvious that because he does shirtless photoshoots, everyone is going to see it? Aomine had answered every question as such and had left the last one to linger, not understanding the meaning.

Kise studies every line of his face and he can see it all; Aomine understands now. Kise watches his eyes flit back over the corners and wonders if he's reading the quotes before Aomine's focused gaze zeroes in on something he'd missed when staring at the swells and dips of Kise’s muscular body on display, Aomine’s own ink and style pushed permanently into his skin.

_Interviewer: Who is this talented artist?!  
KR: a very, very good friend ; )_

Kise had been asking him how to respond to that very question, whether it was okay for him to name drop or not, whether the massive increase in clientele likely to occur as a result of Kise’s new ink would be acceptable and desired by Aomine, and yet he’d left Kise with nothing but air between them in response. Kise had kept him anonymous as a safeguard, not knowing which option Aomine would feel more comfortable with and thus finding a neutral middle ground that even Aomine knew wouldn’t last long.

Aomine's lips curl slowly into a smile and then he’s laughing into his hand long enough for his cheeks to get sore, startling Kise enough to make him gasp, though Aomine doesn't seem to hear it. Kuroko, whose curiosity seems to have peaked, is suddenly at his side with a disgruntled Kagami over his shoulder. Kise, wary of Kuroko's intuitive eyes, closes his eyes until he's certain Kuroko isn't suspicious of him, and then he only peers through almost-closed eyelids periodically rather than staring outright.

“Aomine-kun,” Kuroko intones in that quiet voice of his, raising a brow when Aomine turns to glance at him, cheeks still rosy with mirth.

“Well, come on,” Kagami hedges, impatient as ever. “Show us what’s so funny!”

Aomine, apparently all too willing to oblige, spins his laptop until both of them can see Kise’s spread and the clear focus on the ink pressed into his skin. Kagami leans forward over Kuroko’s shoulder to get a better look, a smile blossoming over his expression as he realizes what exactly he's seeing and why Aomine had been laughing. Kuroko smiles too, and then both he and his boyfriend glance at Kise at the same exact time; Kise fights the urge to swallow. After a long moment, Kuroko glances back at Aomine and gestures to the highlighted conversation.

“He didn’t name you as the artist,” he mentions, as if Aomine isn’t aware of it himself. Kagami snorts, shaking his head and misunderstanding completely the significance of the fact.

“Maybe he forgot,” he offers, glancing at Aomine with a genuinely curious expression that fast morphs into one of defensive disgruntlement.

“Idiot,” Aomine snorts, turning back to the spread and sitting back in the booth with arms crossed over his chest, smug. Kuroko glances up at Kagami and smiles, kind and forgiving even as he explains.

“I think Kise-kun wanted to know if Aomine-kun was okay with it first.”

“Why wouldn’t he be okay with it?” Kagami asks, confused and then outraged as he turns to Aomine and demands in a hushed voice, “Why wouldn’t you be okay with it?”

“Kise-kun is famous,” Kuroko clarifies for him, his tone gentle. “Really famous.”

“So if he drops my name my clientele base is going to explode.” Aomine concludes, giving Kagami a long-suffering look. Kagami makes a sound of recognition in the back of his throat, bobbing his head and glancing back and forth between Kise in the flesh and Kise onscreen with apparent delight.

“I’m not gonna lie, it looks fuckin’ boss.” Kise wants to smile when he sees Kuroko reach back and grasp Kagami’s hand, intertwining their fingers and dipping his head once in agreement.

Aomine, ostensibly smug, merely huffs, “Of course it does: it’s mine.”

Kagami, grumbling, heads back to finish up his latest batch of seasonal cupcakes that he has promised to let Aomine try before anyone else while Kuroko trails after him in his shadow, taking three steps for every one of Kagami’s. With the spread still open, Aomine finally returns his gaze to Kise and lifts a foot to carefully prod at Kise's hip, jarring his whole body. Kise does his best impersonation of grumpily waking up by groaning long and low and saying, "What?" in as petulant a voice as possible, all without opening his eyes. 

“You don’t need any more beauty sleep,” he replies, his smile slipping into his tone. “I just saw the spread on the local news page.”

Kise blinks his eyes open and ignores the pitter-patter of his heart singing in his chest; he straightens himself up and lets his arms cross on the table so he can rest his chin on them, staring up at Aomine fondly. His posture and his voice are lethargic, but his eyes are bright and excited enough that Aomine can see he's been waiting for this.

“You saw the shoot?” Kise asks, a smile in his voice.

Aomine hums. “I think it’s my favorite one yet.”

“It looks so cool doesn’t it? They really went above and beyond on emphasizing it!”

“The tattoo looks great,” Aomine agrees, his voice dipping lower to add, “And so do you.”

Kise snorts. “You’re such a charmer. Did you see the whole spread? Or just the cover?”

Kise watches Aomine click back through the pictures again, landing on what seems to be his favorite as he lets his eyes trace the lines of Kise’s strong body; the way he effortlessly finds the light and centers it on the tattoo, emphasizing not only the colors but the firm swells of his muscles under the ink.

“The whole spread.”

Kise waits a moment, feels butterflies open their wings against his stomach and send chills down his spine. He lets his head turn so that his cheek rests against his forearms and he can't see Aomine's expression anymore. The gesture, with anyone else, might've seemed weird since they're having a direct conversation, but Aomine had long since grown used to it. It is no secret between them that Kise is super into Aomine's voice, that he finds the almost dual toned strands of it effortlessly sexy.

He has a habit of closing his eyes when talking to Aomine just so that he can focus entirely on Aomine's voice, so much so that he knows that Aomine knows that every time they talk on the phone Kise's eyes are closed. At first Aomine had thought it was a little weird, but Kise had laughed it off and simply told him to ignore it. It had taken Aomine less than two weeks to get used to it and now he expects it, which Kise counts as a victory.

“What’d you think of that?” he asks, and hopes Aomine can't tell that he's dramatic enough to be holding his breath.

“I think you really need to start asking me things outright or I’m never going to realize what you’re actually asking me.”

Kise listens as Aomine fidgets, then removes his glasses from his nose and sets them gently beside his laptop. Kise wonders if he, too, is closing his eyes; Aomine has never said it outright like Kise has, but Kise knows that he likes to focus on Kise’s voice too, every sense attuned to the smooth, symphonic tone. It is a strange thing they have in common—though Kise can't really laugh since he'd been the one to start it—but it is  _theirs_ , and that alone makes it enough for Kise to cherish.

“Aominecchi,” Kise pouts, voice dragging as he finally lifts his head from his arms and looks back to Aomine's face, just in time to catch him opening his eyes. A light blush scatters over Aomine's cheeks at having been caught and Kise's heart stutters. “You’re no fun!”

“No, I don’t mind you dropping my name. And yeah, I understand full-well the repercussions of that.” Aomine barges forward without stops, frowning when he hears Kise sigh.

“So you  _do_  understand my subtleties!” Kise laughs, sounding smug.

“I’m not a complete idiot, you know.”

“Your words, not mine!” Kise pipes in, grinning. He watches Aomine roll his eyes before glancing over and out of the front window, watching the rain slowly start to pick up.

Kise turns over his shoulder to see it as well, saying, “What an angry storm.” He sees Aomine nod out of the corner of his eye and doesn't say anything else for a long moment, but his thoughts have moved on to his next order of business, something he knows he needs to discuss with Aomine. The light-hearted conversations they'd had all morning seem too perfect to stir, but Kise knows that's more of an excuse than anything, so instead of stalling any further, he simply comes right out with it.

“I’m going to see James today.”

Aomine's voice comes a moment later, utterly neutral. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I left things with him pretty messy; it’s about time I clean up after myself. I also wanted to let you know that he’s a good guy. I’d actually like for the two of you to meet, though I know you’re both busy. I think you’d really get along.”

He can almost hear Aomine thinking about it, bringing up the image of James’s face that he always comes back to whenever he thinks about Kise’s faux relationship situation before Kise turns back and watches him shrug his shoulders, his tone impartial. “So long as he knows you’re mine, I’m fine with it.”

Kise responds with laughter laced through his words, saying, “I don’t know how you say that stuff without getting embarrassed, Aominecchi!”

Aomine’s cheeks and the tips of his ears burn and one hand reaches up to push the collar of his coat away at the sudden increase in his temperature. His smirk drops into a grumpy scowl.

“The fuck,” he grumbles, caught off guard and speechless.

“Don’t worry,” Kise says, catching his breath, “It’s cute. You’re cute.”

“I’m not  _cute_ ,” Aomine growls, with no sign of his skin cooling down. Kise makes a slightly mocking sound, which only serves to make Aomine’s eyes narrow.

“Aominecchi, please, you’re very cute.” His tone tells Aomine he isn’t going to let it go, amused but laced with steel like it always is when he challenges Aomine. Sighing loudly and very deliberately, Aomine relents, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Whatever.” He yields, grumbling, “You coming over tonight?”

“Mm,” Kise hums, and his expression brightens considerably. “Probably around ten. I've got some errands to run, but I won’t be late.”

“You’d better not be.” Kise knows that Aomine had been aiming for a threatening tone, but it fell short and only just managed to sound this side of stern. He snorts.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t miss it.” Kise shifts and stretches, slides his way out of the booth and stretches some more until his back pops into alignment again. He turns to Aomine with a smile that shifts quick as a switchblade and his voice drops pitch so suddenly that Aomine is left momentarily speechless for the second time that morning. He grins down at Aomine, every line of his expression crafting a promise.

Kise says, “I’m planning on showing you an entirely different kind of  _spread_  tonight.”

Aomine’s face had  _just_  begun to cool before that little comment and yet now it’s heated to hell again, falling into his open hands as Kise skips out of The Bakery with a farewell called over his shoulder.

“And he says  _I_  say embarrassing things.”

 

✧

  
  
Even though he’s been dreading it, Kise knows that he has to stick to the promise he’d told Aomine earlier that morning: that he would have to see James and clear up their disastrous situation. He has no idea what to expect from James. He’d sent him a text earlier in the day telling him that he’s coming over, keeping it short and cryptic because texting can’t cover all the things they needed to discuss in person in order to clean up after themselves. By the time he makes it to James’s apartment, Kise has worried his lip enough to make it raw, lifting his fingertips to prod it gently in irritation before lifting his knuckles to James’s door.

A few minutes pass and just when Kise thinks that no one is home, he hears the lock and chain slide away and the door handle shift within someone’s grip. When the door opens and reveals James, Kise studies him with a sharp eye, taking in the jeans and plain shirt he’s wearing, the socks with holes in the toes, and the way that his expression only curves further in on itself at the sight of Kise on his doorstep. He doesn’t look mad or resentful, but he definitely doesn’t look happy to see Kise, either.

A little miffed at not being able to pinpoint his reception, Kise steps past James when he turns his body sideways to allow him entry, closing the door behind him and walking past him back into the kitchen, where he’d apparently been drinking coffee and reading the paper. After a flicker of surprise over the fact that James actually reads the paper, Kise pulls a chair from the table and almost as an afterthought, gestures to it. James nods his head immediately, sweeping a hand out and muttering a quiet and toneless, “Of course. Have a seat.”

Kise slips onto the cushion and jostles his heavy coat around him, getting comfortable even as he watches James from the corner of his eye. There is no change in his expression, nothing but veiled emotions Kise can’t distinguish without completely staring at him. There is an edge in his eyes that makes them appear jaded, a little broken but on the mend.

None of this is what Kise had been expecting, because even though he’s walking into this confrontation blind, he still has expectations—if nothing else, he is always prepared. But James isn’t reacting in any way that Kise has envisioned; there is no resentment, no anger, no pretending that things are okay between them, and most surprising, there seems to be a complete absence of confidence in himself. His cheeks are lightly flushed and he’s having trouble keeping eye contact with Kise, almost like he’s embarrassed, like he has something distinctly to do with Kise that he has to be ashamed of. A flicker of premature realization crawls up Kise’s spine and sits him upright, bringing his shoulders back and his head to a curious tilt.

“So,” he begins, voice soft so as to not startle James. He seems a small animal, shaken and afraid in the face of a great predator. Kise resents that; he no longer holds any feelings of animosity towards James; in all actuality he greatly wants to remain friends with him after all is settled. His anger from that night has burnt off and joined the atmosphere up high and unreachable where it belongs; all that is left in its wake are the charred, broken pieces of their friendship that are in need of repair.

James’s body wilts under the word like it is a physical weight on his shoulders, tugging him down until his head is actually hanging, every line of him expectant of some kind of punishment Kise doesn’t plan on delivering.

“I fucked up.” James whispers, lifting his head to look at Kise with pleading eyes, wet and gleaming with unshed tears. The words and the dejection bring Kise back to Aomine's doorstep, where he had said something similar and the lines of his body had been a more solemn and broken cascade before what he'd  _expected_  to be Aomine's righteous anger. Instead, he'd found forgiveness and acceptance; Kise hopes that he can give James some of the same.

“What happened that night?” Kise asks, sitting forward in his seat and interlacing his fingers together, making sure that his body language is simultaneously neutral and firm.

“I was drunk.” James answers, shaking his head, his eyes heavy. “That's the worst excuse in the book but it's the truth, and it's all i have to offer you. I’m a lightweight but I’m really good at hiding it; something I had to learn in college. In fact, man, that night’s still a little fuzzy to me. I remember the important parts though and honestly? I’m so fucking irritated with myself. I got us into this messed up situation because my emotions were heightened and I was so drunk I just went with them. I just said whatever I was feeling at the time.”

The confession makes Kise pause, makes him sit back a little and evaluate the underlying meanings. James’s behavior and his words are all pointing to the same promising conclusion that Kise isn’t sure he can let himself believe just yet, even as hope bristles inside of him at the possibilities. He pushes it back down, wanting to have a clearer understanding before he can decide to trust his instincts; this isn’t like with Aomine where he tries to be playfully subtle at times. In this case, he needs clear understanding and openness.

“What are you saying?” He’s frowning, but actively trying not to look severe. James looks up at him and his entire expression is suddenly unveiled, every emotion open and raw in the gleams of his eyes and the lines of his face. His voice when he finally speaks is solid, unwavering, and sincere.

He looks Kise straight in the eyes. “I’m saying I’m not in love with you.”

Silence falls between them, cuts the air around them open and fills it with an indescribable buzz like insects in a nest. Kise stares unblinkingly into James’s eyes, notes the significance of him not looking away, of letting Kise study him without any sort of wall to hide behind. His voice had been swift and sure with no waver to it, strong like the truth with no signs of the façade of lies. The hope Kise feels brimming inside of him overflows and touches his heart, clears his mind and is almost enough to break a smile out across his face.

Instead, he keeps his neutral stoicism in place as best as he can and prods at James’s confession like any investigator would. He isn’t going to leave this to chance and walk out the door with a single line to clear up the mess between them. He’s going to be efficient about this, leaving no ends untied.

Holding no punches, Kise pushes forward. “You told reporters that you were in love with me.”

James cringes, groaning. “I sure did.”

“But you didn’t mean it.” Kise makes it a statement even while he expects an answer. James nods his head, putting layers of steel behind his eyes before he glances back up and meets Kise’s gaze once more.

“I didn’t mean it. I know it’s gonna be hard to trust me after this, what with breaking the contract and fucking up like that, but I’m telling you right now: you can trust me on this. I am not in love with you.” This time, Kise does let his smile filter onto his face, his lips curling up only slightly at the edges. The sudden release of tension from his expression and the resulting softness of his lips seems to make James relax a little, too, a sigh ripping through his body and pushing him against the back of the chair, his shoulders sagging under the tension he’d been holding them with.

“I trust you.” Kise admits, the words almost offhanded. The fact that James is the one to mention the break of the contract is significant; it means that he knows just how badly he’s messed up and how serious the situation now is. It’s also enough for Kise to truly trust his word without an ounce of doubt when he says that he is not in love with him.

With this in mind, he presses on with a clinical efficiency Kobori himself would be proud of. “Like you said though, the contract has been broken. That obviously means that neither of us is obligated to obey its parameters any longer. I want to go public with our separation by tomorrow morning.”

James doesn’t flinch, doesn’t shy away from the harshness of the sentiment at all; rather he nods his head, expression turning contemplative. His maturity is refreshing, reminds Kise that he’s working with a fellow professional. “We’ll need to come up with a good story.”

“Mm,” Kise hums, agreeing, and just like that the air between he and James feels cleared, like they're back to square one when they’d bonded over a buffet table at a prestigious party where billionaires mingled amicably. They still have a lot to discuss, namely what they’re going to stage and how they’re going to stage it, as well as having to contact their managers and explain the situation in its entirety. Even though Kise trusts James and he is certain he’s telling the truth—he has personal experience with saying things he doesn’t mean while drunk—there is still a layer of tension in the base of his spine when he thinks about how James had been so efficiently crafty in breaking the contract. He knows that it would take time for him to lose that feeling of tension, of the very smallest bit of distrust, before he and James can be completely comfortable around one another again.

But now that there is honesty between them and they have begun the process of cleaning up their very public mess, there’s room for growth. Kise’s heart feels light in his chest, no longer a burden when in James’s presence, and he realizes that it’s because he can come home to Aomine tonight and explain to him that things are looking up. That he and James don’t have to pretend anymore, that he and Aomine are free to be whatever they want to be now.

There are still a few obstacles that Kise and Aomine will have to face together. One of which had already been dealt with that very morning when Aomine had stumbled upon the public display of Kise’s new tattoo and explained that he was comfortable with Kise dropping his name in public spheres. There is necessary caution, though, because Kise wants to present Aomine to the public in a way that keeps him safe from scrutiny and harassment.

But there is still time for that. Especially since they still have to deal with the fallout of his and James’s soon-to-be public breakup, with Kise and Aomine’s relationship hopefully going public soon afterwards, and ultimately with Kise’s temporary departure from Seattle.

There are many hurdles left for Kise and Aomine to leap over, but they have plenty of time to prepare for them and eventually encounter them together.

They have all the time in the world. 

 

✧

  
  
Kise’s faux relationship breakup goes public the morning after he met up with James to discuss it, just like he had requested. The fallout is as much of a distraction from his usual affairs as he’s expected, so he's prepared for the rush of questions and reporters at his doorstep and the televised interview that Komori has set up for him. Everything goes as smoothly as he’d hoped, the interviewer a kind woman who sympathizes with him but drills him for an explanation with an effortlessness he has to admire.

The story that they’d agreed upon had been received with little skepticism and much sadness; the world that knows him feels a deep blow at losing such a celebrated couple. In fact, the story he and James and their managers had joined up to create for the press is barely even paid any attention in the face of how Kise is feeling or what he plans on doing next. It is both surprising and relieving to not have to constantly remind his inquirers what exactly is the reason for the break, especially when he still isn’t sure his reason is infallible.

There are bound to be people who  _are_ skeptical; who hear him explain that his feelings for James have always been more platonic than romantic, but that when James had asked him out he’d wanted to see if there could be something more. As it turned out, he’d explained, there hadn’t been and he couldn’t live with himself if he led James on. This of course brought up the much-repeated question of how  _James_  was faring after the breakup, which Kise responded to with a perfect blend of fondness and finality.

“It was mutual. I don’t want to speak for him; in fact you should definitely get him on this show! He’s a far more eloquent speaker than I am,” and he’d blushed, abashed but completely sincere. Kise was far more upbeat and bubbly than James, who spoke with an articulacy and tenor that reminded Kise of dimly lit bars with thick clouds of smoke and the tiniest taste of liquor in the air.

“He’ll tell you something along the same lines. He’s a great guy, super respectable, incredibly modest. The moment he knew I wasn’t feeling the same way, he came right to me and told me that it was okay.” This way, Kise had thought, there would be no question of James pining after Kise and getting cut loose; this way, everyone would know that it was a mutual and friendly break.

It did seem too easy to accept at face value, but that was partly why Komori had suggested it. Sometimes the truth, bald-faced and straightforward, was the easiest pill to swallow. Relief continues to wash through him as he realizes that it is also sometimes the most forgettable, as he steps outside of his hotel and finds only a handful of reporters waiting for him on the sidewalk, rather than the masses that had crowded him immediately after the announcement.

Accusatory pictures have already been plastered over magazines and all over various shows, but Kise doesn’t pay them any mind. He is content to let them have their few moments of glory in ripping him and his relationship with James apart, so long as James is faring just as well. The moment someone goes too far and James becomes collateral, Kise is prepared to put his stylishly modern footwear down and smother all attempts to drag James through the dirt.

Stepping outside into the frigid cold with a pronounced yawn, Kise turns to greet the reporters with a smile. He answers their questions as honestly as he can without outright telling them that he is already in a new relationship, moving carefully around them as he heads for the corner of the street where it's easiest to hail a cab. It’s complicated, since he’d been in a relationship with Aomine even while he was fake-dating James, but he can’t just say that outright.

They don’t give him much trouble, though, and seem most interested in the rumors of some big picture he’s going to star in coming to theatres in America. He’d only smirked, flashing an enigmatic grin through the gap of his taxi window before bidding them a good day.

There isn’t much left for him to confront, other than the obviously huge and significant elephant in every room he steps into, one that looks like a plane ticket out of Seattle and into an entirely different country.

The biggest change Kise has gone through in this entire process, however, is that he isn’t worrying about it every day like he had been for so long. It’s still there, looming like a shadow, inescapable and present but less daunting and more tolerable. Tolerable, in that he isn’t afraid to bring it up to Aomine; he knows without a flicker of doubt that Aomine is going to be upset about it and will want explanations, but Kise feels comfortable in being able to give them to him. He doesn’t have to hide anything about it.

What is  _not_  tolerable and is actually an escalating unbearable ache in his chest is the genuine discontent at knowing that he is going to have to leave Aomine behind. It feels like an injustice for the world to have handed him such an incredible relationship with someone who understands and cares for him in ways he’s never even expected anyone could—only to rip it right out from under him. The entire rocky road of his and Aomine’s relationship has been a treat dangled before his eyes, a bell chime in his ears he’s grown so accustomed to responding to it’s second nature.

He feels certain that their relationship can survive the distance between them, both in geography and in time. It  _will_  last.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be difficult.

And it doesn’t mean that Kise has to like it.

 

✧

 

As it turns out, it doesn’t mean that Aomine has to like it, either.

Kise arrives in The Zone and calls out lovingly for Aomine—with Midorima’s voice a whip lashing against him for his shrill tone—and the two of them head out and into The Bakery next door. Aomine has a busy day ahead of him, making his gruff nature extra prickly and, in Kise’s humble opinion, too cute not to prod at. He isn’t really  _stalling_ , per say, but there is definitely a quip he decides to make about Aomine’s tone and outfit that aren’t necessarily, well, necessary. Especially when the presence of his departure in under a week is wrapped around his tongue like a weighted restraint ready to crack open.

Sighing into his hot chocolate—and ignoring the critical look Aomine gives it—Kise finally straightens and puts on the toughest game face he has in his arsenal. He opens his mouth to speak, feeling the hummingbird beat of his heart and the press of it against his throat, a creature alive and fluttering for an escape.

“Finally getting on with it, then?” Aomine says before a single word can leave Kise’s lips, a single brow hitched up in amusement as Kise’s eyes shoot back to him, his mouth gaping open.

“What?” he sputters, then, “You knew?”

Aomine snorts, pushing back from the table to cross his arms over his chest. He has a black beanie on to cover the tips of his ears and he’s wearing a poufy white jacket that looks soft and warm and like everything Kise wants to snuggle into, though none of that stops him from making fun of it just to see Aomine’s face mold into an irritated pout. He’s wearing the same pair of black skinny jeans he’s been wearing all week and Kise is willing to bet his life’s salary on them not having been washed once in that lapse of time. Kise, on the other hand, has come to The Zone garbed for battle.

From head to toe he’s in black: chunky black boots, tight black jeans, a plain black sweater and an authentic black leather jacket that reminds him of Aomine. The hem of the jacket has a wide leather belt threaded through four loops, the ends hanging loosely over Kise’s thighs. He even has a black ring around his right ring finger, though it has a tiny pink bunny on the underside, but still. He looks like Death itself has come to life just for this occasion and if he is being completely honest with himself? Yeah, he can understand why Aomine is fond of wearing an entirely black ensemble. Kise feels powerful, like nothing can stop him and every square inch of him looks  _untouchable_. It’s heady, invigorating.

“Okay,” he finally says, rewarding Aomine’s intuition with a grin. “I do have something important that we need to talk about.”

“Mm,” Aomine grunts, still giving Kise that same pointed look. Kise sighs and goes right into it, holding nothing back.

“My business here in Seattle ends in just over a week, Aominecchi. I’ll be leaving after that.”

He peeks up through his bangs, studying Aomine’s expression. He watches as that curious brow settles back low and presses close to its twin, his lips curving down at one side in a scowl. His eyes are sharp and bright, shrewd in a way that Kise knows will let Aomine see right through him.

“You’re leaving.” He finally says, tone inscrutable. Kise gives him a slow nod, expression hidden slightly by his bangs.

“In a week.” Aomine continues, cocking his head to the side and watching unblinkingly as Kise nods again.

“I should’ve told you earlier. I  _wanted_  to tell you earlier.” His words are genuine and there’s no sign of self-pity in his tone; he offers to Aomine all he has left in him—the truth. He waits as an inscrutable silence falls between them, Aomine’s eyes flickering over his features and taking in any number of hints about what Kise is feeling at that moment. Kise watches him watching him, sees the way he files certain things away and marvels over others, all of it without moving an inch of his face. His eyes are incredibly expressive, enigmatic even in shadows.

Finally, when Kise thinks he should take a sip of his hot chocolate for some sort of distraction lest he dissolve into stuttering explanations that will only serve to confuse them both, Aomine lets out a monstrous sigh, looking at Kise through his long lashes.

“You’ve been worrying about this, haven’t you?” he says, shocking Kise into another wide-eyed, open-mouthed gape; a deer caught in headlights. Looking a curious mixture of smug and frustrated, Aomine nods to himself like he’s gotten all the answers he needs from Kise’s eyes, the delicate tilt to his lips, the slight tremble in his hands.

“You’re  _such_  an idiot.” Aomine mutters, snorting. He lifts his Chai latte to his lips, bites on the straw a bit before taking a sip. His face screws up immediately with what Kise is certain is a brain freeze, curses spilling from his lips. Kise laughs incredulously, eyes still wide as saucers.

“I’m the idiot?” he laughs, oddly close to crying. “You’re the one who ordered a cold drink in winter.”

“Yeah, well,” Aomine huffs, finally opening his eyes and wiping at his lips with the back of his hand. “You’re the bigger idiot. Waiting last minute to tell me something this big. You really underestimate me, ya know?”

“Oh, here we go,” Kise rolls his eyes as Aomine frowns, his eyes narrowing comically. He brings a pointed finger up, waggling it in Kise’s face and shaking his head.

“Hey, you don’t get to be all sassy about this. I’m the victim here! My boyfriend is running away to who knows where, fuckin’ Antarctica for all I know, and he decides to wait until I’ve only got a week left to tell me.”

“I get it, I get it. Terrible move. Terrible boyfriend.” Kise completely ignores the added pressure on his chest at hearing Aomine admit out loud that they are dating, that they belong with one another. Even though he’s seen countless times how verbally expressive of his feelings Aomine can be, Kise still finds himself caught off guard with every blatant expression of affection. He curls his fingers into the material over his thigh, biting his lip to distract himself from the prickling sensation of tears that are definitely forming in his eyes. Aomine notices them immediately, though, and groans.

“Oi,” he grunts, bouncing jaggedly out of his side of the booth and coming over to slide in beside Kise, throwing a poufy arm around Kise’s shoulders and tugging him close. Aomine’s hand presses Kise’s face into the warmth of his chest, petting his hair and grumbling things about him being  _so embarrassing_  and  _a big baby_  and  _I can’t believe you’re crying_. Kise sniffles against him, one hand coming up to grasp at Aomine’s big jacket as he snuggles closer.

“’m sorry, Aominecchi.” He mumbles, pressing his lips against the warm material to mask his remaining sniffles.

“Yeah, yeah, just quit your blubbering. Bakagami’s making his way over here; probably thinks I’ve hurt your feelings or something.” Aomine’s last word is barely out of his mouth before Kise hears Kagami’s booming steps approaching, his voice equally as impressive when he stops in front of their table. Kise looks up at his powder-covered apron and the massive red jacket it’s wrapped around, holding in a laugh when he sees the tomato-red state of Kagami’s face, puckered and angry. Everything about the man is big and red and intimidating, a picture of fear, but the rainbow sprinkles stuck to the hem of his apron and his hands sort of throws everything off a little.

He points a rainbow-sprinkle-covered finger in Aomine’s face, voice trembling slightly when he asks, “What the hell did you do, idiot? Why’s he crying?”

Before Aomine can even get a word out, Kuroko is there, peeking around Kagami’s massive body. He has a teal scarf wrapped thrice around his neck but it’s still long enough to touch the floor behind him, his matching beanie slightly askew on his head. He looks from Kise’s position in Aomine’s chest to Aomine’s twitching eye and frowning lips before his own expression hardens.

“Don’t mistreat Kise-kun.” He says, tone scolding. Kagami huffs in agreement, crossing his arms over his wide chest with an actual growl rumbling in his throat.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Aomine groans. The hand that had been playing in Kise’s hair drops to his shoulder and shakes him lightly. “Oi, call off your mutts before I get bitten.”

“Don’t call them mutts, Aominecchi,” he mutters, sitting up and wiping at his eyes with a shy smile. He beams at the both of them, noticing the way Kuroko studies his expression and his shoulders sag in relief, as he seems to decide that everything is in fact okay. Kagami, on the other hand, isn’t as observant and takes a threatening step forward like he’s planning on physical violence. Kise shakes his head, smiling up at the giant with unveiled affection.

“It’s okay, Kagamicchi. It wasn’t Aomine’s fault.” Kagami seems suspicious, glancing back and forth between them for a moment. He studies Kise’s tear-streaked cheeks with pursed lips.

“You sure?” he mutters, skeptical. Kise bobs his head immediately, chirping, “Yes!”

“Okay.” The big man accepts, but not before pointing two fingers at his eyes and back at Aomine threateningly, his body already rotating to head back into the baking area. “But I’ve got my eyes on you, punk.”

“Go bake some more cookies, it’s all you’re good for!” Aomine calls after him, glaring when he receives two raised middle fingers in response. Kuroko has a small grin on his face as his eyes trail down the line of Aomine’s and Kise’s bodies where they’re touching, finding it difficult to distinguish between the two of them because they’re so close. He nods his head once more in finality, saying something about enjoying themselves as he heads back into the cooking area. Kise knows that he’ll have to settle Kagami down a bit and that there is definitely going to be some kissing action going on back there, the knowledge of which makes him flush happily.

When he returns his focus to Aomine, he finds him muttering things under his breath, the last of which being the only thing Kise can actually understand.

“I’ve known them longer than you have, if anything they should totally be on my side.” Aomine pouts, slumping a little in his seat.

Kise grins, saying, “Sorry Aominecchi, they misunderstood.”

“And you let them!” Aomine growls, but one look at Kise’s gleaming eyes and his small smile has him deflating against his side, pulling him back against his body with a quiet sigh.

“Whatever.” He grunts, the vibration of which runs through Kise’s cheek and brings warmth up under his skin. “But don’t think you’ve escaped, I still want the full explanation.”

“Of course,” Kise responds immediately, sobering as he nods into Aomine’s chest before pulling back so that he can look him in the eyes and not speak to just his incredibly warm chest.

“Well first off, where are you going?” Aomine asks, bringing his left hand forward and lacing his fingers through Kise’s right hand. Kise hums gratefully at the warmth of Aomine’s skin against his—he’d forgotten to wear gloves.

“I’ll be going to Sydney, Australia.”

Aomine takes a moment to mull over that before he nods. “For how long?”

Kise swallows and hesitates. “A few months? No more than five.”

Aomine stares at him, blinking once, slowly. “Five months.” He says it like he’s trying to taste the words, to make them real and tangible and within the realms of his understanding. Kise nods his head.

“Five months.” He breathes, feeling the word escape through his teeth like a long-held prisoner. Aomine, for the first time that evening, looks at Kise with something akin to pain, his eyes squinting and his mouth tight. It makes Kise sit up a little straighter, tighten his grip on Aomine’s hand and lean forward ever so slightly so that Aomine knows he’s there with him.

Aomine groans, loud and low and long, saying; “I hate it.”

Kise nods his head, gives Aomine’s hand another squeeze. “I’m not too happy about it either.”

Aomine raises a brow, that pained expression slowly starting to peel away. Just that quickly, with utter trust, Aomine accepts what Kise has to bring him. It’s shocking, and more than that, it’s telling of how much Aomine actually cares for Kise. He’s never expected to be anything but the one who loves Aomine more than Aomine loves him, and he’d accepted that and been okay with it—but being confronted with the total opposite, with the realization that Aomine is in deeper than Kise has ever imagined, well.

It is incredible.

Kise feels shaken, a little unsteady. Aomine’s true feelings are harder to read than most people, though Kise can usually read him like a book bathed in sunlight, yet even still he had missed this—this subtle culmination of Aomine’s feelings for him, appearing so shrewdly under the surface and revealing themselves as though they’ve been under an iron curtain for months. Kise hasn’t seen them in such stark detail as he is now; the flicker in Aomine’s eyes when he looks at Kise head-on, the way his lips part whenever he glances at Kise’s lips, the thundering pulse in his neck when their hands lace together. Everything is there, stark and prominent, and Kise had missed it all until this very moment.

He knows, then, without a shadow of doubt that Aomine is in love with him. That he’s been right to think that their relationship isn’t something that can be broken by distance or time. Aomine’s expression had been a shade of pained frustration that Kise’s can match, but it had jumped to spring and bloomed open with trust and acceptance the likes of which Kise has never experienced before.

Aomine accepts the inevitability of their bodies being pulled apart because he knows that their hearts are corded together in ways that distance and time apart can never sever.

Kise’s tears build up again and flow freely down his cheeks, startling Aomine into sputtered words and gestures. He even glances over to the kitchen, making sure that Kagami isn’t waiting there with a ladle raised threateningly and a glare aimed to maim before pulling Kise back into his chest.

“Jesus,” he grunts, “What now?”

Kise  _almost_  apologizes, just for being such a snotty mess, but realizes that he can’t. He can’t apologize for these new tears—ones that are made from pure unfathomable happiness, that don’t make his head hurt or his brain feel too big for his skull. These tears are freeing, magnificent and luminous.

“I’m happy,” he whispers instead, pressing himself closer to Aomine to absorb his warmth and the tangy, spicy smell of him. Aomine, a little shocked and uncertain, mutters something unintelligible into his hair, pressing his lips there and moving his chin lightly, affectionately, over the same spot. Kise doesn’t hear the words he says, nor can he see the relieved, overjoyed expression on Aomine’s face. He can only hold onto him as tight as he can, press as close as possible, take in the heat of his body and the spice of his skin and the way Aomine holds him back just as closely.

Kise loves and is loved in return.

How beautiful is that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me a little longer than usual to update; I had a lot of editing to do on this chapter and then some unforeseen circumstances that interrupted my editing process! Hope all is well and thank you for reading!


	11. Chapter 11

In the daytime when the clouds are only a mildly irritated gray and the rainfall is as light as sprinkles, Aomine grumbles  _nonstop_  about Kise’s impending departure.

At night when the clouds are an angry mass of blackened roiling might and the rain comes down in sheets, Aomine presses in close to Kise’s body and kisses every inch of his skin with a mouth that’s eager to please and leave lasting impressions. He whispers promises into the creases of Kise’s skin: the curve of his neck, the insides of his elbows, every indent of his abs, the corner of his groin, the backs of his knees. By the time Kise’s going away party rolls around, there is no place left on his body that Aomine has not tasted.

The Zone is closed to the public for the celebration and sending off of their rampant blond stray, and Wakamatsu has even put up a few streamers here and there. Aomine eyes them with distaste, scowling. Momoi thinks they should keep them there but is shot down by Midorima and Aomine simultaneously refusing. Momoi pouts, glaring at the both of them before dancing over to Kise and wrapping her arms around him. She bounces up until her lips are at his ear and Aomine is making angry beehive noises behind them, a little jealous of the closeness between them.

“A surprise?” Kise inquires curiously, glancing up in time to see Midorima roll his eyes. He doesn’t miss the small tilt of his lip when he smiles at Momoi, though. Wakamatsu is grinning from the back where he’s been trying to show Imayoshi some dance moves that are, apparently, his own creations. He’s been trying for weeks to create a new and popular move to spread across the nation, but to no avail. Kise watches on in sympathy for both Imayoshi and Wakamatsu, the latter of which looks seconds away from inflicting bodily harm when Wakamatsu crashes into a framed picture and pauses to hear it shatter.

“I don’t even want to hear it.” Aomine immediately interjects, holding a hand up and not even looking at the damage. “Just clean it up. And knock it off.”

Wakamatsu disappears with curses spewing under his breath as Kagami turns back to Kise, laughing. Kise is still looking at Momoi, curious and suspicious, when the door to The Zone opens and the storm blows in the fresh smell of the ocean tide and something flowery that Kise can recall smelling in Momoi’s apartment. He turns, surprised at the familiar scent, and finds himself looking at a vaguely familiar looking woman standing in front of the doorway.

Short, thin, with shoulder-length brown hair and a gaze that could slice right through somebody—Riko Aida.

The woman Momoi is in love with.

Her hair is a disastrous mess from the windstorm she’d apparently walked through, her cheeks a little flushed from the cold and, Kise assumes, from all of the eyes currently studying her. She’s dressed in a crisp suit tailored perfectly to her body, her dress pants thin and flattering. She glances around the room, a little shyly before her eyes land on Momoi and light up like beacons.

Momoi unfurls herself from Kise, beaming up at him before darting around him to wrap her arms around Riko. To Kise’s pleasant surprise, Riko returns the hug, leans into it, closes her eyes and lets the tip of her upturned nose touch the skin of Momoi’s neck in a gesture of comfort. Kise can hear Aomine talking to Wakamatsu and Imayoshi behind him, can hear a quiet conversation between Kagami and Kuroko taking place off to the side, and knows that Midorima is reading a magazine at the front desk like he always is, even though the shop is closed to the public.

Kise watches as Momoi pulls back from the embrace, reaches up to straighten some of Riko’s messy hair with deft fingers, and tucks some of it behind the flushed tip of her ear. Every movement is gentle and loving and Riko softens more and more under Momoi’s caring touches, her body relaxing towards Momoi’s so much that one of her hands comes forward to rest on Momoi’s hip for the briefest of moments. This, Kise realizes, is insurmountable progress taking place right before his eyes.

The last time Momoi had talked to him about Riko, things had been going well. They’d been on a few dates and Momoi was living the dream, though she was skeptical about Riko’s reactions. However, after explaining every detail Kise asked her to recover, he assured her that either Riko was an incredibly good liar, or she was at the very least enjoying her time spent with Momoi.

It seems that he’d been right,  _more_  than right, as he watches the two of them behave like lovebirds fluttering around one another. When Momoi straightens her hair enough for either of them to be content and Riko is ready to be introduced to everyone, Momoi steps out of the way and takes her hand, lacing their fingers together.

“Everyone,” she announces, her voice trembling on the line between excited and elated. “This is Riko Aida.”

Kise smiles, about to step forward and offer to shake Riko’s hand when something that he  _should_  have expected, but just honestly doesn’t, happens. Wakamatsu, bless his heart, bounces up from his crouched position over the broken frame and shouts across the room, his voice shrill enough to leave a ringing aftereffect in Kise’s ears.

“Who the fuck is that?” His voice trills, eyes narrowing to slits as he tries to see around everyone. Kise chokes on his saliva, hears Midorima mutter something that sounds like  _why me_  under his breath, and glances up to see Riko grinning in amusement from just behind Momoi’s shoulder. Momoi is the picture of indignant rage, her nose turned up in the air. She looks ready to open a can of verbal whoop-ass when Riko settles a hand on her arm, squeezing once.

She glances over everyone with a bright smile, her cheeks flushed a little darker than before; her eyes land on Wakamatsu across the room with something like a challenge swirling in their depths. “I’m Momoi’s girlfriend.”

Given the way that everyone in The Zone responds to this declaration, one would think that they’d known nothing about the shorter woman before this day. Everyone nods their heads, accepting it without question, but Kise knows that everyone in the building, himself included, is celebrating some sort of internal victory for Momoi. She looks like she knows it, too, glancing around with a smug, fond expression before bounding over to Aomine and throwing her hands around his neck. Kise takes the moment to approach Riko, offering her his hand and a bright smile.

“I’m Kise Ryouta. We’ve actually met before,” he begins, and her face explodes with color, eyes going wide.

“I remember,” she says, lifting a hand to shake his proffered one. “I don’t forget people with potential like yours.”

Kise watches her cringe; laughing and predicting her next statement before she even gets it out.

“Creepy! Creepy, Riko.” She tells herself, shaking her head. “You can take the girl out of training but you can’t take the training out of the girl.”

“Understandable.” Kise grins, studies her earnest brown eyes and finds himself enjoying her company, brief as it is. He still feels protective over Momoi, enough so that he’s still eying Riko a little warily, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But now that he knows who she is and has looked into her eyes, taken in the details of her expressions and the way she holds herself, loose and smooth but at times a little tightly bound, his gut is telling him she’s one of the good ones. Aomine comes up behind him, letting a hand rest on his shoulder as he comes around him and looks down at Riko with an unblinking glare.

“Hi,” Riko greets, and Kise can literally see the tension bead against her skin. “You must be Aomine. Momoi never stops talking about you.”

Aomine, beast that he is, merely grunts in response. Kise only resists elbowing him lightly in the side because he’s actually  _on_  his side in this endeavor. He wants to make sure that this woman is good for Momoi, that she measures up to the tales Momoi has been telling him.

Kise watches in amusement as that same enigmatic widening of her eyes takes over, dancing all over Aomine’s form with a critical edge that sets Kise’s posture straight. Aomine seems generally unaffected by it, if not a little uncomfortable under it.

Before she can stop herself, Riko is sputtering out questions about Aomine’s form, his training regimen, if he works out daily, if he does free weights or machines, what his diet is like and if he’s ever played a sport in his life. Her eyes are wide and bright and pinning him to the spot, the tables completely turned. Momoi, at his shoulder, muffles a laugh against the back of her hand, eyes squinting shut in amusement. Her ever-protective best friend from childhood, monster to anyone even remotely close to their ages, terror of the schoolyard, now easily deterred by the rapid-fire interest in his physical well-being from a girl that only comes up to his chest.

“Uh,” he answers inelegantly, glancing over at Kise as if  _he_  has the answers. Kise shrugs unhelpfully, raising his brows. Aomine turns back to the brunette, his hand falling from Kise’s shoulder as he appraises her with a new set of eyes, more contemplative than defensive this time around.

“I’ve played street ball since I was a kid?” his voice rises towards the end, making it a question. The embers in Riko’s eyes catch fire and her lips curl up in the corners.

“Do you train?” she asks, and her hands move in this strange, empty gesture that confuses Kise until he remembers what she does for a living, what she’s most used to doing, and he realizes she has unconsciously moved to write something on a clipboard she doesn’t actually have. She doesn’t even seem bothered by it, though, and continues to stare up at Aomine who is, frankly, at a loss for words at this turn of events.

Kise pats Aomine’s back and moves around him, leaving him there to suffer at the tiny woman’s every whim with Momoi on the sidelines, laughing into her hand.

Kise heads to the back of the shop and helps Wakamatsu pick up the last vestiges of broken glass from the shattered frame, listening to him curse under his breath. When they get every shard into a designated sharps container, Kise explains the Aomine situation currently taking place at the front of the shop to a curious Wakamatsu.

“Oh how the turntables, have turned, the,” Wakamatsu’s grin gradually slips off his face, tripping all over his own words and flushing bright red when he realizes how wrong that has come out and how ridiculous he now sounds. Kise gives him a sympathetic look, to which he merely snaps, “Shut up.”

Imayoshi had wandered over to Momoi and is quietly discussing something with her, something that makes her eyes shine and one of her hands come up to rest comfortably against his forearm. He doesn’t seem to think anything of it, merely continues talking as Midorima slides his magazine out of sight and slowly meanders over to where Kise and Wakamatsu are leaning against the wall. Surprised, Kise raises a brow and greets him jauntily, unhindered with the lack of response, especially when Wakamatsu receives the same treatment. Nonetheless, Midorima leans against the wall beside Wakamatsu and crosses his arms over his wide chest, pursing his lips and looking dispassionately on at Riko Aida.

“What do you think of her, Midorimacchi?” Kise asks, tone upbeat though he is both genuinely curious and interested in Midorima’s response. Quiet and cruel as he is, Midorima is also extremely good at determining a person’s true character with minimal contact. Kise will never mention it, but he thinks this comes from growing up with minimal friends willing to stand up for him, especially when he was bullied.

Midorima doesn’t glance away from Riko, shrugging his heavy shoulders. “Seems respectable.”

“ _God_ ,” Wakamatsu groans, “you sound like a grandpa.”

Midorima breaks his solid stare to give Wakamatsu a critical look of practiced apathy, as if nothing the blond says is important enough to even make a blip on Midorima’s radar, least of all get a rise out of him. Kise smiles at it, familiar with the deadpan eyes and the stern line of his mouth as Wakamatsu mumbles something snarky under his breath and turns away, the loser of a silent battle. When Midorima turns back to watch Riko Aida—who is still badgering Aomine with what appears to be more and more personal questions about his workout regimen—he looks far too smug to be anything close to unaffected.

Filing that bit of information away for later taunting, Kise glances back at Aomine and laughs out loud. The expression on his face is as poignant a cry for help as any Kise has ever seen, and if it hadn’t been so genuine Kise would’ve laughed again at the fact that the man who fears nothing and no one is legitimately terrified of someone more than ten inches shorter than he is and about a quarter as heavy. Momoi, the angel that she is, eventually takes pity on her childhood friend and moves up against Riko with a familiarity to her touch that has Kise’s eyes softening in response. She says something to Riko, pressing her hand against one of her silk lapels before waving Aomine off and edging him out of the conversation with the ease of a ship opening its sails.

Aomine, dazed and confused, looks around the room and catches Kise’s eyes; he lumbers through the shop and comes to rest right in front of him, stricken.

Kise laughs, can’t help himself, even as Aomine slowly shakes his head and whispers, “Bro, what the fuck just happened?”

“She was just asking a few questions.” Midorima responds, carefully raising a single brow. Aomine looks at him like he’s looking into an alternate universe, like a few questions have become millions and all the answers he can’t understand are right there in front of his eyes, inexplicably unfathomable.

“I’m scheduled to do training with her three times a week for the next six months.” He says without a single hint of emotion in his voice. Wakamatsu and Kise both burst out laughing, unrestrained peels of laughter raining down over Aomine’s tense form as they curl over themselves, holding their stomachs. Even Midorima is smiling, pert and smug and amused.

Aomine slowly shakes his head. Midorima asks, “Did you get a discount?”

“Yeah,” Aomine answers, giving him a strange look. “I got a really good deal.  _Really_  good.”

Midorima has this look starting to crawl over his face, slow and insidious, like he knows something really significant to this line of conversation and there isn’t a single force on Earth that can make him reveal it. It makes the hairs on Kise’s arms stand on end as suddenly as his bout of laughter had come on, his body straightening and his eyes widening comically, grin plastered wide across his face. He can’t tell what the secret is, or really anything about the secret at all; only that Midorima  _knows_  something about Riko and her training and why Aomine has gotten such a good deal and Aomine is going to be  _so pissed_  when he realizes what fits all of that together.

“I like her,” Kise suddenly chirps; grin spreading wider as Aomine’s stricken gaze finds his. He looks like he’s taken a physical blow, one brow pressed low and the other raised high, every sharp angle of him confused. Kise decides to take mercy on him, following in Momoi’s steps, and wraps an arm around his wide shoulders. He has to stand a little on his tip-toes to manage it, dragging Aomine down into a slight-slouch, but the heat of their bodies pressed together and the way Kise’s touch seems to help clear Aomine’s mind is enough to overcome the slight discomfort.

“Seems cool enough,” Wakamatsu sniffs in agreement, wiping his hand across his lips. Midorima hums in a way that sounds approving, reaching into his pocket and taking out a stuffed frog keychain and then his phone. Kise hadn’t asked questions when he’d first met Midorima and realized he always had some weird figure on his person and he didn’t plan on asking questions now.

Aomine, now officially coherent enough to look at Riko with more than just confused concern and wariness, like a predator surveying another, far more dangerous predator, unconsciously wraps an arm around Kise’s waist and says; “She better treat Satsuki right.”

The unspoken  _I’ve heard and seen far too much to make me question her place at Momoi’s side_  is apparent to Kise and Midorima, though Wakamatsu only nods and takes the statement at face-value. Everyone in the shop seems to agree that Riko is a good match for Momoi, smart and kind and passionate, but still they remain wary and protective of their favorite bubblegum tattoo artist. It seems that even though Momoi has tried to keep hers and Riko’s personal affairs secret, her friends and coworkers are all intuitive enough to know that it takes a lot to get Momoi genuinely upset, and that over the past few years several of these upsetting circumstances have been at the hands of Riko Aida, however inadvertent they might have been.

There is no point in blaming Riko for being confused about her feelings or where her life was leading her, though; Kise understands that better than most. No one is condemning her for her confusion or even how that confusion may have negatively affected Momoi at times, but rather they’re focusing entirely on how attached Momoi is to her, and how dangerous that can potentially become. There is no fault in being cautious with the heart and feelings of one of their most dear friends; Riko, for her part, seems to agree and accept this fact wholeheartedly. 

When Imayoshi moves to talk to her one on one, Kise watches her frame tense for just a moment before relaxing, just a little, her eyes alive with sincerity. She won’t deflate under the harshest of prods, clearly, and that means that she’s willing to fight for what she has done and what she is planning on doing with Momoi.

Kise finds himself liking her more and more as time passes, studying her as the hour hand on the clock continues to jump forward and everyone finally comes together in a circle around a magnificently crafted original cake straight from Kagami’s kitchen with a single lit candle on top—not a birthday candle, but an actual home décor type candle. Kise’s eyes go wide with surprise, clapping his hands up to his mouth as several conversations die down in time for Kagami to present the cake to Kise with a grin like fireworks, Kuroko hanging back in the shadow cast by his shoulder.

“We’re gonna miss you like crazy,” Kagami sighs, setting the cake down on one of Imayoshi’s work stations, closest to the entrance. Kuroko has a kind, sad smile on his face, his hair mussed like he’s just woken up from a nap right before this party. Momoi is holding Riko’s hand under her arm, rubbing her dainty fingers between her hands to keep them warm, her face a mixture of untold happiness and a fracture of sadness cutting straight through her irises. Imayoshi and Wakamatsu are making bets about things Kise can’t even really distinguish, but their idle bickering chatter, familiar to him in ways he never would’ve expected months ago, settles his heart into a comfortable, heavy rhythm.

Kise looks up at Aomine and finds him pouting across the way, arms crossed over his chest and staring at Kise with narrowed eyes. Kise knows that expression, can practically taste it on the back of his tongue—it’s the way Aomine looks at him when Kise presses him down into the mattress and licks trails of fire up his throat, teasing him with faint touches and the press of his hips before making Aomine  _beg_. Kise feels the muscles in his stomach clench, his heart pounding out a quicker rhythm in response to that look and all that it means. If Kise could, he’d make love to Aomine every night, press kisses to the fine line of his throat, the heavy set of his shoulders, the firm line of his spine tailoring down into his densely muscled ass.

However enticing the thought—and it is almost  _too_  enticing, especially for a room filled with friends—Kise wrestles it away, brushes it off to the side so that he can see the reality of he and Aomine not having that kind of time anymore, and both of them knowing it. Aomine isn’t holding grudges and he isn’t as mad as his expression looks; Kise knows without question that he is just honestly sad. When Kise’s eyes meet his and he puts his best into a fragile smile, Aomine responds in kind, his expression brightening up like a sunrise coming over shadowed mountains, his eyes perceptive.

He pushes off from the wall he’s been leaning against and heads across the circle to stand next to Kise, grumbling something about a magnetic pull that Kise understands without even needing to hear the words. Aomine’s hand comes forward and laces their fingers together, the first time that they’ve ever held hands in The Zone, in an open space where all of their friends can see. Everyone seems to have a collective rising smile push up onto their faces, knowing and expectant, and—

“Fucking  _finally_ ,” Wakamatsu snaps, shaking his head as he breaks out of his current snipe-fest with Imayoshi, who, frankly, looks a little affronted at being tossed aside so easily—until he looks at Kise and Aomine and realizes why. The smirk that lifts across his lips carries through his expression and changes every line of his face into something dangerous and omniscient that has Kise swallowing a little heavily.

“Right?” Midorima chimes in, surprisingly literally everyone, partly because of the sentiment but mostly because he  _agrees_  with something that  _Wakamatsu_  said. There is a collective muttering of surprised amusement as Wakamatsu smirks and says, “Exactly,” and then realizes who it was that had agreed with him, his head snapping in a vicious double-take as his eyes narrow in on an all-too smug Midorima.

Momoi laughs, eyes bright; she states what absolutely everyone is thinking. “You know it’s bad when Midorima and Wakamatsu agree on something.”

Kise and Aomine realize at the same time that everyone is sort of laughing at them for taking so long to show their affection for one another in front of anyone. Kise smiles and rubs at the back of his head self-consciously, laughing a bit as Aomine tenses beside him, frowning. When Kise looks up at him, though, his dark cheeks are lightly flushed and it is the cutest thing Kise has ever seen.

“Oh fuck off,” Aomine snaps, glaring at everyone in kind. Kagami, however, is having none of it, his laughter a boom of thunder throughout the room.

“Idiots,” he snorts, looking fondly at Kise, who merely winks in return. “You guys have been sniffing each others’ butts since the day Golden Boy showed up, admit it.”

Wakamatsu bursts out laughing at that, though he is also nodding and verbally agreeing. Momoi and Imayoshi look incredibly smug, with Riko smiling at her side, a little lost. Midorima is  _radiating_  amusement at their expense and Kise, honestly, can’t find it in him to be even the slightest bit embarrassed. Aomine, on the other hand, is getting more and more flushed by the minute, his famous glare having apparently lost all of its fire for the day.

“It’s true,” Momoi adds pointedly, giving Kise a quick but wicked glance that has him standing straight up, preparing to field the coming blow. “Kise was  _so_  into you, even before he actually met you.”

“Oh my  _God_ , Momocchi!” He flounders; legitimately surprised that she  _went there_. He can feel his cheeks heating up, the tips of his ears starting to burn. He glances over at Aomine, probably the worst thing he could’ve done at the moment, and finds him positively glowing in self-satisfaction. Kise groans, rolling his eyes and giving Momoi a look that trails over to Riko and back with a dangerous level of promised vengeance. Momoi gets the hint loud and clear, her mouth curling up into an amused grin.

“And Dai-chan was so oblivious. He was  _pining_ ,” she adds and Kise watches, literally watches, all of that self-satisfaction shatter and drip off of Aomine like a splash of ice cold water to the face, leaving nothing but the red flash of mortification behind. Kise snorts, snuggling up into Aomine’s side without a care in the world for who sees. Their friends laugh, loving every second of Aomine’s embarrassment and his defensive stutters, the way he clams up and can only really say, “Oi!” in response.

“ _Anyways_ ,” he finally manages, trying to control the heat in his cheeks and come to terms with the ineffectiveness of his glare, “this day isn’t about  _me_ , it’s about this idiot leaving us.”

With the spotlight put right back on him, Kise smiles nervously at the faces smiling back at him, the back of his neck getting a little hot. Wakamatsu points at the candle on top of the cake and asks, “Why is there a candle? It’s not even a birthday candle. You fucked up, Kagami.”

“I did not fuck up!” Kagami says through his teeth, squinting at an unperturbed Wakamatsu.

“It’s symbolic.” Kuroko adds, coming to his love’s defense. “Kise-kun will blow out the candle today, but the candle itself will remain behind in the shop. So that when he returns again, we can light it.”

There’s silence, sudden and encompassing, and Kise feels like he’s about to cry. Everyone seems to be taking in the meaning of the candle in his or her own way, digesting it and pondering over the use of it as a symbol for his presence in the shop even when he’s not there.

“Bro,” Wakamatsu says, almost reverently. “That’s deep.”

Midorima snorts, shaking his head and adjusting his glasses. Momoi has actual tears in her eyes, the sight of which pushes Kise right over the edge so that he’s joining her, clear streams falling down his cheeks. Aomine mutters something about the both of them being embarrassing, gestures for Momoi to come over to them and wraps an arm around her, too, so that he’s got either of them on each side.

“Better be a fresh smelling candle,” Aomine says, gruff. Momoi elbows him in the side and Kise snorts. Loudly.

He says, “That’s funny, coming from you.” Aomine pinches his shoulder, making him flinch.

Wakamatsu raises an eyebrow; “It smells like orange blossom.”

Everyone in the room collectively looks at him in utter silence. He fends the bewildered looks off with sputtered defenses, jerkily crossing his arms and muttering something about some girl he spends a lot of time with and how she has a similarly scented lotion and how he’s positive he hasn’t mistaken the scent.

Kise perks up at the mumbled explanation, asking; “Is it Sakurai?”

Wakamatsu turns every shade of red, lips puckering for a moment. “Maybe,” he says offhandedly, eyes shifty. Kise beams while everyone around them looks generally confused and a little lost. Kise had  _known_  that getting Wakamatsu’s phone number from Momoi had been a good idea; that his first inkling that under all of that cursing and gruff sass and general malice Wakamatsu is a good guy; that starting up conversations with him randomly would eventually build a comfortable rapport between them. Otherwise, he never would’ve gotten close enough to Wakamatsu to discuss his completely inept relational skills, or help him not make an utter fool of himself in front of a genuinely sweet girl.

Wakamatsu has all the right intentions and all the wrong ideas about how to pursue them. Kise won’t say that he’s an expert on dating, not nearly, but he is familiar with the ins and outs of charisma. So it really wasn’t any trouble for him to help Wakamatsu out a little, especially since (after some very careful needling about talking to Kise at all, ever) Wakamatsu was openly intent on dating this girl. With a few weeks’ worth of advice and helpful badgering for Wakamatsu to just  _call her_  and ask her if she’d like to grab a coffee and a pastry at The Bakery since it was  _right there_ , Wakamatsu finally got his shit together and followed through. He’d been so nervous initially that he had completely forgotten about the proximity his work had to the well-known bakery shop and had immediately jumped on that idea with gratuitous grumbling.

Though Kise has been maintaining conversation with him throughout his time in Seattle, he’s also been a little caught up in the entire dramatic spiel that has become his life as of late. So the reminder of this girl in Wakamatsu’s life, this Sakurai Ryo, has Kise perking back to attention, zeroing in on the latest news for the two unlikely lovebirds.

Kise will never outright tell Wakamatsu that they are adorable together because he is huge and mean and grumbling on the outside, yet a total sweetheart on the inside; and Sakurai seems to be a literal angel with too many apologies on her lips and far too little self-esteem. Though, Kise recalls suddenly, he does remember Wakamatsu saying something about her being highly competitive in certain respects, so maybe her self-esteem is just hidden away for particular skills, like sports. Either way, they seem a wonderful if not surprising match and just thinking about them getting together and being lovey-dovey has Kise’s heart soaring in his chest, his smile big and brazen.

“I’m so glad!” he chirps, excited. “It’d been so long since you text me about her so I was sort of wondering…” he trails off, giving Wakamatsu a shy but encouraging look. Wakamatsu immediately gets flustered, sputtering and glancing around like he’s sure he’s going to be judged for this—for having interest in a girl. The only person in the room who visibly reacts with anything other than muted joy is, surprisingly, Aomine.

“You have each others’ numbers?” he squeaks, his glare strong and heated like a laser beam as it lands on Wakamatsu, pinning him down and in place like a high school lab experiment. “You  _text_  each other?”

Kise smirks, nudging further into Aomine’s side and humming his positive response. Hearing the breath hiss out between Aomine’s teeth, Kise rolls his eyes and carelessly flaps a hand at a visibly nervous Wakamatsu.

“So?” he says, playfully indignant. “Yeah, we text each other. We’re good friends, right Wakamatsucchi?”

“No!” Wakamatsu immediately denies, crossing his arms in front of his face as if to physically ward Kise’s affection away from him. The words are lost to him, however, and all he can really do is repeat himself with another fervent, “ _No_.”

“Can we just blow the candle out before melted wax gets all over Kagami’s beautiful cake?” Momoi finally interrupts, grinning and rolling her eyes at Wakamatsu’s obviously contradicting nature. His face is bright red and he’s fidgeting but there is something like the first day of summer underneath his mask of gruff embarrassment, something happy and refreshingly ageless, something a lot like love.

Kise pulls away from Aomine and moves towards the cake, accommodating the wish with a sharp grin. He bends over slightly, makes eye contact with a grinning Kagami and nods his head when Wakamatsu grumbles something about making a wish, idiot, and closes his eyes. He wishes for the only thing he actually feels like he’s missing, the one thing that’s pressing down on him like a physical weight, an unavoidable stone crushing him down to dust.

He wishes that he won’t have to leave, but it isn’t the wish he uses to blow out his farewell candle.

Instead, he wishes that every one of his friends will one day get to experience the indescribable happiness that he feels whenever he’s with Aomine; a love so deep it dips and dives into the milky way of his soul and comes up glistening, sparkling, a new star in the galaxy of galaxies flitting throughout his cells, his blood, his bones, his muscles, his skin.

He blows the candle out and blinks open his eyes to the loving expressions looking on, all of them muted with the reality closing in upon them, the reality of Kise leaving them for an indeterminate length of time. He’d explained to them that it was only a few months, that he is going to get a ticket back at the soonest available time, but all of them understand the unspoken element of how quickly his career shifts time slots.

Kagami, never one to sit still or accommodate moods of gloom, brandishes a knife from some hidden pocket in his jacket and immediately begins cutting Kise a piece of cake. He serves himself last, frowning when Wakamatsu tries to deny a piece with some comment about his figure, and gives the piece instead to a gladly accepting Riko. Everyone eats in relative silence while Wakamatsu tries in vain to maintain his strong will, eventually failing and shuffling over to serve himself a tiny slice of cake because he absolutely can’t not. Besides, Kagami’s baking skills are so impressive that Kise honestly can’t blame him.

As everyone continues to finish their cake, mingling with one another and talking around cake bits in their mouths, Kise takes the moment to glance around the circle at each of his friends in kind. He’s grinning, still a little teary-eyed, as he realizes that this right here is going to be one of the most conflicting moments of his life.

Pure elation laces through his veins when they reminisce about their first impressions of him and what he’d thought of them, of the memories they’d built together along the way, of the trips to nightclubs and the late-night-early-morning ventures to The Bakery where they were always welcome, of the way Kise has become a common enough fixture in The Zone that no one even thinks twice about him being there, that they expect him to be there just like they expect the sun to rise and the moon to set, that he  _belongs_  there.

But even while the elation runs through him, it’s still tinged with a mucous-like dread, sloshing through him and forcing bubbles of reality up through his pores. He’s going to have to leave them, and not for a short amount of time, either. He might as well be on another planet for how far apart they are going to be. It isn’t like he’s never coming back or that he won’t be able to come back whenever, but even a few months without seeing them and being there to laugh with them and share the woes of their days with them feels painful to think about. He’s going to miss so many opportunities to joke around with Wakamatsu and play the dangerous mind games Imayoshi is so found of, to laugh with Momoi and greet Midorima with a peppy chirp, to spend time getting to know Riko and how her inclusion into Aomine’s life through association with Momoi is going to affect him.

He is going to miss so much of Aomine. That hurts the most.

He is optimistic, though, because they live in a world that’s surrounded by technology. He’ll be able to video chat with any of them when they have free time, either on the computer or on someone’s phone. He can still text them and E-mail them and if worst comes to worst, he’ll write goddamn letters and send them through the mail.

This is not an ending.

If anything, this is a new beginning to another chapter in his life, one that he had never expected and hasn’t had the time to prepare for but is excited about nonetheless. Everything is going to be new and thrilling and even though a large part of it will contain the massive lapse of time and space between Aomine and him, Aomine will still be there, inked into the pages, eternalized in the creases of Kise’s heart.

Just like a tattoo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter was posted a little late, so this one is nice and early. Only a few more chapters left :') As always, thank you for reading!


	12. Chapter 12

_Six months later_

   
  


“You know, this was definitely possible on your phone. This was more than possible on your phone.” Kise’s voice comes in through the screen, a little disjointed but for the most part discernible. Aomine grunts, shifting him around and settling his back against the door, preparing to push it open and step out of the sunshine currently peeking through a very light and dispersed cover of clouds.

“They’re going to laugh at you,” Kise adds as an afterthought, resting his chin on his hands. He’s lying on his stomach on his bed in a fancy penthouse suite in Australia, his feet kicked up behind him and his hair still playfully mussed from the photoshoot he’d attended a few hours prior.

“Whatever,” Aomine sniffs, still a little miffed that he’s being forced to share his alone time with Kise with the rest of their friends. Usually it’s Momoi who brings the cyber Kise to work with her whenever they both had the time, showing him around and pointing out some of the new arrangements they’ve bought as well as everyone’s newest sketches. They’ve even hung some of Aomine’s latest works on the wall because they’re so fond of them, which makes Kise feel all warm and tingly inside, and very proud.

Usually when Kise is able to contact Aomine, the two of them spend the entire time talking one-on-one as they are so inclined to do. Aomine likes to listen to Kise’s day and his explanations of the photoshoots and the way the sun looks reflected against the ocean and how beautiful the architecture is and how endearing the cultures. Sometimes, when Kise is pretty certain Aomine is at his loneliest, he’ll sit his laptop down on the edge of his sketching table and ask Kise to describe the sunset, his pencil scratching over the paper as Kise happily obeys, offering every possible detail to each and every transition of color he can recall.

Before long, this process becomes  _theirs_ ; Aomine moving wordlessly over to his sketching table, preparing his pencils and flexing his hand, while Kise moves over to the veranda, leaning over the railing to stare out at the sunset as it cascades down beyond the Sydney Opera House. Kise can pick out the distinct sound of Aomine’s pencils scratching against paper even if he’s in a crowded room and music blasts in his ears, it is _that_  familiar to him.

Sometimes he wonders about what parts of these moments stick out to Aomine the most. Maybe it’s the image of the sunset being built up for Aomine in his head, or the words Kise uses to describe each color and cloud and cascade.

It never occurs to Kise to that it is the way his voice creates the words, how his tongue and his lips wrap around every word and turn them to poetry over the line between their computers until Aomine is absolutely certain that he knows every single inflection Kise has and will ever use. Aomine has become so familiar with Kise’s voice that he can hear it when his body goes still and his mind rests, clear as a bell, bright as the sun, at times high and breathy like wind flowing through leaves, and yet at other times, deep enough to brush along the undiscovered ocean floor.

Aomine hadn’t planned it, hadn’t realized that his initial requests—so simple, so easily filled—would lead him to  _this_ , to being able to identify emotions in the strings of vowels and consonants to the extent that a single word can give away Kise’s current mood as easy as breathing. He hadn’t planned it, but he gladly takes what he has unknowingly led Kise to put down.

“Okay, ready?” Aomine asks, looking back at Kise with a raised brow. Kise nods excitedly, eyes bright. Aomine pushes back against the front door and together he and Kise enter The Zone.

The moment they’re completely inside and before the door even has the time to shut, Momoi is coming towards them with a little extra something in her step. She waves excitedly at the screen, greeting Kise fondly with a secretive _long time no see_  that makes Kise gasp, blanching with nerves. He immediately gives her a dangerous look, one promising of retribution, silencing any further commentary that might give his secret away.  

This secret had involved him buying a ticket to Seattle and a return ticket back to Sydney within the same day. He’d only needed to be in Seattle for a couple of hours in order to follow through with his plan, one that Aomine absolutely could not be a part of—and as such, he’d used Momoi as his insurance that there would be no way he’d run into Aomine during his very brief, very lucrative stay. Kise still isn’t sure what Momoi had done to fulfill her sole duty of distracting Aomine for a few hours in the evening, though he thinks he might have a few ideas. She is not the only person who knows the details of his clandestine operation.

Akashi Seijuro holds Kise’s secret in his dainty, nimble fingers.

Momoi rolls her eyes at his glare, respecting it nonetheless by keeping her revealing comments to herself. She glances over at Aomine and grins before turning back to Kise and falling right back into routine, reprimanding him for not calling her back. He flinches at the reminder, though he is glad that she’s no longer dangling the bait Kise has been trying so hard to hide from Aomine for  _six months_  right in front of his face. Although, Kise realizes while Momoi continues to scold him with a fervor he has missed, Aomine’s natural state of ignorance may be strong enough that he won’t even know that anything between Momoi and Kise had just been amiss.

“I’m sorry,” he groans, dragging the words out dramatically when Momoi’s lecture finally ends. “I got caught up with meetings.”

Momoi pouts for a brief moment, her shoulders finally lifting into a shrug and her lips turning up at the corners. “You’re forgiven,” she sings, settling one hand on her hip. She’s wearing a bright orange sweater pushed up at her elbows and a navy blue high-waist skirt that flows loosely around her thighs, some bold and chunky necklace around her neck. Her hair is pulled to one side and hangs down in long pink waves, as bright and beautiful as always. She looks from Kise’s face to Aomine, who is standing awkwardly trying to hold his laptop on his shoulder without dropping it—and Kise—onto the ground. She shares a pitying glance with Kise, who nods knowingly.

“Dai-chan, honestly, you know you could’ve just FaceTime’d him right? That way you wouldn’t have to walk around carrying your laptop.” Kise thinks that she’s trying to sound sympathetic, he really does, but there’s a playful edge to her expression that sort of says otherwise.

Kise can see Imayoshi bent over a client, steady hands directing his tattoo gun with sure movements, only looking up once to smirk at Kise in greeting before going back to his work. Aomine turns slightly, letting Kise point in Midorima’s direction and preparing to launch every defensive explanation he’s prepared on the walk over to the shop when Kise’s high-pitched shriek interrupts him.

“Midorimacchi,” he breathes, “your  _hair_!”

Midorima, who had been leaning on his right fist reading a magazine with his usual expressionless face, glances up at Kise with a raised brow. Takao Kazunari is sitting beside him behind the desk, swiveling on his barstool. He grins and waves at Kise, who distractedly waves back.

“You cut it!” he gasps, one hand covering his grin. “It looks  _hot_!”

Midorima’s expression doesn’t change at all but Kise watches as his cheeks ever so slightly shift from their usual fairness to a pink-tinged flush. He pushes his glasses further up his nose and Kise  _knows_  it’s to hide his smile.

“It’s nothing.” He shrugs, swallowing. It isn’t a huge change, not really, but when someone like Midorima who almost never changes suddenly decides to wear a fashionable style that is popular amongst young KPop idols, it’s a  _big deal_. Kise says as much, squinting a bit when he sees a flash of something bright in Midorima’s left ear. Before the haircut, Midorima’s hair had been long enough to hide his ears and even his eyebrows, but now both are showing and there are short wisps of hair sticking up in random places atop his head. He looks _good_. And there’s an earring of some sort in his left earlobe that Kise has never seen before, gleaming at him when Midorima tilts his head just so and the sunlight streaming in through the window hits it just right. When he realizes what it is, his eyes widen and he demands Aomine take him closer so he can really see.

Sighing in a way that Kise would’ve expected someone suffering a great injustice might have, Midorima turns his head and lets Kise squint up close to the camera and study his ear.

“Holy  _shit_ ,” Kise breathes, staring wide-eyed and fascinated at the small gauge plug fastened in his earlobe. It’s a smooth mixture of the fairest shades of tan and blue, intermingled with infinitesimal specks of what looks like stardust glitter, creating an enigmatic, galaxy-like cluster.

“I leave you for a few months and you go and get even more gorgeous than before? How should I take that, Midorimacchi?” Kise’s voice is a whine, playful and fond. Midorima actually  _grins_ , but that might’ve been because Aomine is already cutting their conversation off, jealousy rampant in his tone.

“Oi, cut it out,” he snaps, glaring up at the screen where he can partially see Kise making a kissy face at him in indignation.  “ _I’m_ your boyfriend, remember?”

“Of course!” Kise chirps, quick on the rebound and completely useless in the face of Aomine’s rarely offered loving sincerity. He literally can’t keep up a charade when Aomine is so plain about his feelings for him; he has to meet him halfway as quick as he can, not wanting to think that Aomine loves him  _more_. Of course he makes it into a challenge, and of course Aomine is aware of that fact.

The smirk on his face is evident even from the awkward angle and before Kise can comment on it he hears Wakamatsu’s shrill voice from across the room. Looking up and trying to find him in his limited range of view, Aomine turns towards him and Kise watches Wakamatsu shuffle forward, hands in his pockets and a sneer on his face. With all of the new items and sketches and frames on the walls, the new displays and Midorima’s new haircut and revealed plugs, Kise feels like everything about the shop has changed. And yet Midorima is still shy and reserved like a stream running through the mountains, Momoi as shrewd and beautiful as the first day of spring, everyone reinforcing their individual natures that Kise remembers fondly.

Everything around them is constantly changing.

And yet, Kise realizes, nothing has really  _changed_.

Wakamatsu stops in front of the screen, giving Aomine a pathetic look that has Kise laughing out loud. It looks so unfamiliar on his face—especially when it’s usually the expression directed  _at_  Wakamatsu.

“You brought the whole frickin’ laptop in? What are you, a barbarian? Use your phone!” he grits his teeth, shaking his head and appraising Aomine in a new and less favorable light, like his idol is suddenly proving to be a little more problematic than he’d originally thought.

Aomine makes a sharp noise in his throat. “I’ll fire your ass so quick,” he threatens halfheartedly, with no steel behind the words. The empty threat falls flat at Wakamatsu’s feet and he continues to shake his head, shocked to realize that Aomine is actually sort of an idiot.

“Anyways,” Wakamatsu continues, bringing a fist up in front of his mouth as he pointedly clears his throat. “Midorima’s haircut is nothing compared to this!”

Before Momoi can even finish saying  _here we go again_  somewhere off-screen, Kise watches as Wakamatsu rips his shirt up and off his head and turns around to display a tattoo covering the entire expanse of his left shoulder blade. Kise’s eyes are wide as saucers as he inhales through his teeth, eyes tracing the clean, flowing lines of a sneering Hannya Japanese mask with sakura blossoms near the bottom right side of its chin and the top left side of one of its horns. There are whirls of realistic smoke coming from behind the mask, shrouding the tip of a horn and the sharp edge of part of the jaw; it’s smirking face and sharp teeth send chills down Kise’s spine for no reason other than how striking it is.

“Wakamatsucchi,” he gasps, “It’s  _incredible_.”

“Isn’t it?” he squeaks, excitement and pride lacing through the words. He moves his shoulders a little, letting Kise see the full extent of the tattoo through the movements, the way the deep red and purple hints transition smooth enough that it truly looks real. Aomine snorts, probably shaking his head with some sort of small smile on his face. Momoi walks into Kise’s line of sight, arms crossed and expression smug. Imayoshi, still working diligently on a tattoo of his own, speaks up from a few yards away; “He cried like a baby.”

“Hey!” Wakamatsu immediately sneers, turning to give him a dangerous look. “You said you wouldn’t tell him!”

“Oops,” Imayoshi responds, with a gleam in his eyes that Kise knows all too well. Wakamatsu seems to recognize it as well and backs down before he gets himself into a mental duel he won’t win.

“Maybe like one tear,” he mutters sullenly, clenching his jaw.

Kise offers him some genuine sympathy. “I would definitely cry. One hundred percent I would cry my eyeballs out.”

“You did pretty well for your first one, though,” Momoi adds, speculative. Aomine makes some sort of noise in his throat that sounds contrary and if Kise had been there, within reach, he would’ve elbowed him lightly in the side for it.

“Neither was very impressive.” Midorima pipes in, delicately flipping a page of his magazine. Kise wonders idly if it’s a bargain catalogue this time, or the rare but amusing Cosmopolitan he tries so hard to hide.

“You don’t know how it feels!” Kise whines, as Aomine turns him back towards Midorima so that he can see the bespectacled man’s face. Midorima glances up at Kise with a slowness that instantly reminds Kise of a predator, lurking in the shadows with hackles slowly rising.

“Oh,” he says, the word a mere breath from his lips; casual like he’s commenting on the weather. “But I  _do_.”

Kise’s mouth drops open and he doesn’t even care that he’s been made, that Momoi and even Wakamatsu are both laughing at him, that Takao and Aomine, surely, are both smirking knowingly. Kise laughs, falling right back into the natural air of The Zone, feeling so comfortable and at home with the quick-switch conversations and the playful laughter that for a moment he forgets that he is literally across the world, almost an entire day’s length away from all of them.

“What else have I missed?” he asks, tone suddenly wistful. Aomine glances up at him and gives him a comforting look, all in his eyes, and it sends a familiar wave of heat straight through his body. It’d been so long since Aomine had touched him, kissed him, pressed him down into the sheets and kissed the dips and rises of him. It had been so long since Kise had reciprocated.

Kise is so lonely without Aomine near him that he’s even begun to miss the stench of his apartment, of his room, of dirty clothes littering the floor and sheets that smell more like Aomine than they do fabric softener because he so often forgets to wash them, too. If that isn’t true love, he doesn’t know what is.

This thought, this realization, takes Kise’s thoughts for a loop and he suddenly realizes that there’s more significance to Wakamatsu’s new tattoo than he’d originally thought—a Japanese Hannya mask for wisdom, yes, but  _sakura blossoms_  as well. He glances back to Wakamatsu as he tries to put his shirt back on, getting his head stuck in the neck hole for a moment before pushing through with a head of messy hair.

“Sakura blossoms,” Kise says, and Wakamatsu freezes in the process of trying to brush the wrinkles of his neon yellow shirt away. “Like  _Sakurai_.”

Wakamatsu glares up at him and rolls his eyes, nodding his head. Kise is baffled with how easily he admits to it, with no shame and no embarrassment, just the suspicious narrowing of his eyes at Kise, like he thinks he’s going to have to defend himself.

“Are you dating?” Kise asks instead, since he hadn’t planned on attacking the idea behind the tattoo in the first place. Who is he to judge? His tattoo may not have symbolized Aomine in any way but it is a permanent expression of Aomine’s skilled hands pressed into his skin; if that isn’t a risky intimate experience then he doesn’t know what is.

“Yeah,” Wakamatsu admits, rubbing at the back of his head. His cheeks are a little pink but there’s a brightness to his eyes that makes Kise think he’s happy, and really, that’s what’s important.

“I’m happy for you,” he says, utterly honest and possibly glowing a little with pride for his friend. Kise had offered a small assist in the steps it took to get to this point, where Wakamatsu was brave enough to ask Sakurai out and somehow impress her with his crotchety humor and overall rough nature. With Kise’s words rolling around in his head, Wakamatsu responds only with a thumb up in Kise’s direction before turning and heading back to work, though Kise notices that his step looks a little lighter for it.

“We’re on a tight schedule here,” Aomine gripes, turning so that Kise can see Momoi one last time before Aomine takes him next door to say hi to Kagami and Kuroko.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, Momocchi.” He promises, clenching his fist dramatically where she can see it. She rolls her eyes, lifting a hand to wave at him before calling out, “You’d better.”

Kise calls out a farewell to Midorima and Takao and only gets Takao’s farewell in response, which makes him grin. Aomine, still holding his laptop—and by association: Kise—on his shoulder, turns and makes his way into The Bakery.

He calls out to Kagami from the front of the shop, his voice thunderous across the room thriving with people dancing to the jukebox.

“Oi! Kise’s here,” he reaches up and secures the laptop with both hands on his left shoulder, making sure that none of the dancers jostle him. Kise is about to scold Aomine for the misleading welcome when he sees Kagami pop his head out from the kitchen and through the doorway, his expression bright enough to be hiding the sun behind it, before his eyes find the laptop and Kise’s pathetic grin and lifted hand. His face falls so quickly into a scowl that Kise can’t help but laugh hard enough that tears are about to form; meanwhile Aomine makes his way across the dance floor and sets his laptop down on the front counter, watching as Kuroko appears from literally nowhere right in front of the laptop.

“Oh! You startled me,” Kise laughs, greeting Kuroko jovially. Kuroko smiles, rubbing a bit of powder off of his jaw.

“Kise-kun,” he greets, voice pitched higher than Kise’s used to. He sounds delighted. “It’s been a long time.”

“Damn right it has,” Kagami snaps, bustling through the doorway with his same old  _Lunch Time Rush_  apron on, still covered in powder and sprinkles and several miscellaneous baking decorations Kise can’t even properly identify. There is a smudge of what looks like chocolate fudge above his left eyebrow and Kise has to wonder how that’s even gotten there.

“I miss you guys so much!” Kise groans, pressing his fists against his cheeks and blowing a raspberry at the screen. It’s a little difficult to hear them over the loud music playing overhead and the nonstop chatter of their patrons, but Kagami has never had trouble being heard, even in the most challenging environments.

“Then you shouldn’t have left in the first place, bro.” He says it like it’s just that simple, and Kise knows that he believes it to be. He feels his eye twitching in irritation, turns to see Kuroko giving Kagami a prickly look.

“Come on, that’s not fair,” Kise complains, pouting. “You know I had to go.”

“We know,” Kuroko butts in, putting a stop to whatever is about to fall from Kagami’s openly frowning lips. “We just miss you.”

“I think about you guys every day. There is literally no pastry or shake that compares. I’m dead serious.”

Kagami’s laughter is deafening, his hands coming to rest on his hips as he puffs his chest out proudly. Kise can practically hear Aomine’s eyes rolling.

“Of course there isn’t! I’m one of a kind!” Kagami brags, his smile a smooth line across his face. Kuroko rests a hand on his tailbone, rubbing circles against him. It seems to soothe the redhead enough that he sighs in relief, even though he still basks in the compliment Kise has willfully offered him.

“When are you coming home?” Kagami finally asks, with all the carelessness of a child. Kise’s heart pounds against his ribs like it’s begging to be released, to race all the way back to Seattle where he  _does_  feel like he’s home. Kagami had said it so simply, so easily, but it had only just occurred to Kise how accurate that is. He feels more at home in Seattle than he does anywhere else, even more so than he does in Tokyo, where he still has some friends from school waiting on him. Everything about Seattle feels like home: the weather, the people, the places, and most importantly, Aomine.

Aomine feels like home.

Aomine comes around the counter to stand next to Kuroko, his arms coming up to cross over his chest and that same stubborn expression Kise is so familiar with comes inching its way across his face.

“Yeah,” he agrees, tone a little rough around the edges. “When are you coming home?”

Kise’s heart does this one-two flip-flop thing that takes his breath away. Hearing a close friend like Kagami say that Seattle is his home is one thing; it means that he belongs there with them in that city, in that lifestyle. But hearing from the love of his life that Seattle is home feels like validation—like he belongs there,  _with Aomine_ , and nowhere else but at Aomine’s side can ever compare. It feels like with that simple line from Aomine’s lips, their entire relationship is revalidated, even when it hasn’t ever been in question.

They’ve been video calling one another as often as they can in the six months since Kise had left Seattle and by extension, Aomine, behind. It isn’t accurate to say that they speak to each other every other day, let alone every week, but they try and sometimes things fall into place and they  _can_. But in reality, the most regular pattern Kise can decipher is more like once every twelve days, which sounds depressing and makes Kise feel gloomy until he remembers that when they do talk, they talk for  _hours_.

There’s never really a lapse or awkward silences between them, not when they put all of their cards on the table and really, there isn’t even enough time for them to get everything they want to out before Kise is falling asleep on the line, exhausted from so many meetings and photoshoots and fashion shows—from staying up late and waiting on Aomine’s every irregularly timed call. Sometimes it’s Aomine that falls asleep on Kise, exhausted from a two or three day stunt in another state he’d had to drive to in order to meet an important client—sometimes he stayed up so late working on sketches—making them as close to perfect as he could manage—that he couldn’t even hide the pain in his hands and his wrists from Kise when they next spoke. It was something that just came up, inadvertently, in the slight strain of his tone that led Kise to question where it was coming from.

There’s no hiding things from one another. Aomine had seen a few articles still bringing up Kise’s and James’s relationship, but there is no sour tone added into the reports anymore. Aomine has completely forgiven Kise and he feels blessed for it, feels like he is truly loved. It takes a strong person to deal with that and not hold grudges. It makes Kise realize that what he’s found in Aomine is something rare and something special; Aomine is the kind of person who chooses love over everything else, even jealousy, even feelings of inadequacy. Kise admires Aomine so much just for that fact alone, without even beginning to get into all the other aspects of Aomine’s character that Kise finds endearing.

Like the way he stands up for his friends against anyone, regardless of size or threat level, or the way he brushes his fingers light as butterfly wings over every tattoo that he finishes, or the gentle way he speaks to people who sit in his piercing booth and shake with fear, distracting them from it and having them take a deep breath in before he pierces their skin, trying everything in his power to make the experience less about pain and more about discovery.

Kise can speak nonstop until his voice runs out of sound and his lungs run out of breath about all of the things that Aomine does and is that make Kise’s heart beat out a rhythm that makes his blood sing in his veins, making him feel hotter and more alive than anything else in the world.

“Soon,” Kise breathes, a promise. He looks up into Aomine’s deep ocean blue eyes and smiles.

“So very soon.”

 

✧

 

Three days later, Kise’s plane touches ground in Seattle, Washington for the second time in a little over six months. His luggage is already in his hotel room by the time he gets there, a perk of being wealthy and traveling more often than not. He’s still glancing at and responding to new messages on his blog as he falls into the cushion of his couch, blowing a puff of air up at his long bangs. He settles there for a long moment, absently rubbing at his chest and smiling at some of his fan’s comments and responses. When he’s gotten through a large chunk of the mail he sets his phone aside with a sigh, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the couch, content.

His pulse is beating rapidly in his throat, the blood coursing through his veins calling out for action, for movement. Kise sits and listens to his body cry out for the person it’d so long been missing and who is now so,  _so_  close. He lifts his left hand and presses it over the tattoo marked into his skin, each stroke loving and tender and full of Aomine’s passion, reminding Kise of his hands and the way they’re so steady and sure, of his eyes, only blinking every now and again, his focus resilient when he’s intent upon something he loves.

Before Kise really even realizes that he is moving he’s walking out the door, in too much of a hurry to care about fixing his appearance any more than he had when he’d left Sydney. He’s wearing Converse originals and a pair of dark wash skinny jeans that are ripped horizontally on the left knee. His shirt is a loose white tee underneath an unzipped plain black jacket with a green cargo jacket unzipped over that; the material of both jackets are light enough that he isn’t overheated, is in fact rather cold, if he’s being honest, even though it’s springtime and the sun is actually visible through the sparse cloud cover. There’s a breeze that cuts right through the material of his clothes, though, and has him shivering as he hails a cab and gives the driver directions off the top of his head.

He can’t even sit still. He fidgets and presses his lips to the back of his hand to try to keep the grin from his face, tries to tamper down the pounding of his heart back to something manageable and not something heavy enough to be a stone in his chest, but his body knows the distance is closing between him and Aomine and all he can do is try to remember how to breathe regularly.

It may have been the fact that he is overly conscious of everything his body is doing or it might’ve just been the cab driver’s slow driving but it feels like hours pass before they pull up right in front of a blaring neon sign reading  _The Zone_. Kise climbs out of the taxi and pays the man with a breathless thank you, turning around and looking up at the sign with eyes close to tearing up. Sentimental to a fault, he slips his phone out and takes a picture, wanting to post it on his blog or just keep it around for memory’s sake, he isn’t even sure. He just knows that this moment is huge and monumental in the list of moments he’s wanted to document throughout his life because he is  _home_  and he’s never had a homecoming that feels this right.

He’s tempted to poke his head into The Bakery, shout out a quick greeting to Kagami and Kuroko before heading into The Zone, but honestly that isn’t even an option. His body is already moving towards The Zone, his hands lifting to pull the edges of his jackets closer together before landing on the door and pushing through it.

He steps into the shop for the first time in six months and the multitude of familiar but long-absent sounds and smells hit him like a freight train: ink and sage and antiseptic, the buzzing of tattoo guns and idle chatter and the muted beat of some underground song playing in the speakers overhead. He can even identify the faint shuffling of Wakamatsu in the back of the shop, kicking something around in the back room and cursing when it injures him in return. He glances to his left and meets Midorima’s keen eyes, a warm smile blooming over his face. 

He walks over to him with arms outspread for a hug, to which Midorima scowls and immediately tries to evade. He doesn’t try too hard, though, because Kise ensnares him and presses him close, humming happily by his ear. Midorima doesn’t return the hug but his body releases its tension and he relaxes into it, almost content. When Kise pulls back, Midorima falls back into his usual position of sitting on a stool and looking down at a magazine, the glare of the sun hitting his glasses in a way that makes his eyes difficult to see.

Chin now gracefully perched on his fist, Midorima turns to the rest of the shop and casually calls out, “A familiar stray is on our front mat.”

His voice carries all the way to the back of the shop where Wakamatsu drops something heavy and suddenly falls silent, and yet Midorima’s voice is still somehow nowhere near loud enough to be called a shout. For a moment Kise wonders how he does it, but then Momoi’s sticking her head out, expression tinged in curiosity before her eyes land on Kise and grow big and wide and wet within seconds. She flits back into her curtained-off tattooing station, presumably to excuse herself for a hot second while Kise walks towards her, prepared for her when she flits back through the curtain and launches herself into his arms. She’s crying and pulling at his clothes, legs wrapping around his waist and her laughter a melody too long absent in his ear.

“I’ve missed you!” she cries, finally dropping her long legs back to the floor and holding her own weight steady, not unbalanced on her wedges in the slightest. She releases Kise but keeps her hands on his shoulders, her tearful face bright and rosy. Kise’s smiling so wide his eyes are squinting shut, happiness coursing through him because he’s finally here, finally able to see his friends and be around them and  _belong_. There’s a dull pain coursing over his chest and Momoi only just seems to remember, blushing prettily and glancing at his jackets with a knowing grin. “Oops, sorry. I’ve just missed you so much!”

“Me too!” he wails, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Midorima cringe. Laughing as he comes down from his emotional high of actually seeing Momoi for the first time in so long, he tells her not to worry about it and he glances over her outfit with an approving gaze.

“You’re still my favorite fashion icon, Momocchi.” Kise takes in her short gray sweetheart dress, the thigh high eggplant socks, the solid black wedges and her rugged leather jacket. She has three silver necklaces on, all different lengths, and her hair is big and bright and as beautiful as he remembers. She pushes a shoulder up by her cheek, pressing it to her chin and making a smug face; “I try.”

Kise’s focus had been diverted by Momoi the moment he saw her, but now that the initial greeting is over and they’ve gotten their tears out and their hugs in, Kise’s mind and body immediately return to their task of fidgeting and overheating.

“Is he…” he asks, the words coming without his conscious control, breathy and anxious. His eyes are wide and bright and he can’t stop himself from glancing over Momoi’s shoulder to Aomine’s station, then around the shop when he doesn’t see him there. “Is he here?”

Momoi gives him a sympathetic look, though there is definitely an amused gleam somewhere in the blend of her beautiful irises that has Kise wanting to roll his eyes. “He’s not,” she says, watching his expression stutter and visibly fall.

“That kind of throws a wrench in my grand plan to surprise him here,” Kise admits, sounding comically dejected. He’d planned the whole thing out, gotten really invested in making it a huge deal, so of course he’s a little bummed that his plan has been thwarted. He definitely should’ve checked with Momoi before entering The Zone expecting Aomine to be there, but he’d wanted to surprise her  _too_  and maybe he’d just been hoping for too much. What if Aomine isn’t even in the state right now? What if he’d gotten a last minute call to travel over to Oregon or even California for a job? Kise can feel his nerves tightening into bundles under his skin, adding pressure to his already heavy heart. It beats out a finicky rhythm in his chest, a child throwing a tantrum against his ribs, wanting nothing more than to hear Aomine’s voice and press his body into his warm embrace.

Imayoshi walks past him with a sort-of friendly slap on his back in greeting, to which he distractedly returns with a wilted hello. Kise sees the back of Akashi’s head as he prepares the necessary materials to pierce a young lady’s septum. Wakamatsu comes bustling out of the back room, slamming to a stop when he sees Kise standing in front of Momoi, his eyes wide.

“Yo!” he shouts, walking over to them with a surprisingly genuine grin on his face. The closer he gets, however, the more he realizes that Kise’s face isn’t quite as happy to see him as he’d thought it would be.

“Okay, rude,” he says calmly, raising a pointed finger in Kise’s face. This snaps Kise out of his contemplative daze, though, and he finds his smile rising back up to greet Wakamatsu as he bounces forward, wrapping his arms around his thick waist. Surprised, Wakamatsu awkwardly pats Kise’s back and then scratches his sideburn like he’s not sure what he’s really supposed to do.

“It’s good to see you!” Kise exclaims into his chest, sincere.

“Could’ve fooled me.” Wakamatsu gripes, and Momoi watches him in amusement as he tries not to pout. He continues to grumble under his breath, distracting enough that Kise doesn’t even hear the door open behind him with a new patron coming in. He still has his arms around Wakamatsu and his face plastered fondly against the big man’s chest, his senses only just beginning to pick up on an incredibly direct gaze burning a hole straight into his back and the sound of a half-full grocery bag shifting against someone.

“The  _fuck_ ,” Aomine’s voice demands from the entrance, and Kise’s ears hone in on it before he can even take a second breath. He releases and drops Wakamatsu like a hot potato and turns so quickly to lock eyes with Aomine across the room that he’s left dizzy, the world askew. He isn’t entirely certain that the quick spin is the reason for it, either, not when Aomine is slouching there, tall and strong and beautiful and looking ready to rip Wakamatsu’s head clean off his shoulders. Kise doesn’t even hesitate; he runs straight to Aomine and leaps into the air.

Aomine’s eyes widen, the grocery bag on his arm dropping to the floor beside him as Kise launches himself into his arms, his legs wrapping around Aomine’s waist and taking the both of them roughly to the floor.

“I was going to surprise you!” Kise laughs, bubbly and carbonated and feeling light as a feather in the wind. “But you weren’t here and I was so worried you’d gone on a trip or something but here you are! Aominecchi!”

“I think you broke my spine,” Aomine responds, but his hands are holding Kise so tightly the blond is certain his fingers are going to leave bruises on his back. Kise doesn’t care; he peppers kisses along Aomine’s neck and cheek and forehead before leaning down and pressing their lips together.

It has been so long since they’ve held each other, since they’ve kissed and tasted and touched. Kise breathes Aomine in like he is a dying man’s last breath, holding onto him like he is the one true anchor tethering him to the world and without him he’ll be lost forever. To Kise’s everlasting delight, Aomine responds in kind. His hands are locked into the material of Kise’s jacket, pressing harshly against his skin, rolling up so that Kise’s legs aren’t locked beneath him. Kise doesn’t even unwind his legs, he keeps them locked and sits right there in Aomine’s lap in the front of his shop with the chorus of howls and hoots and cheers coming form their friends and the patrons currently getting work done. Kise can’t take his eyes off of Aomine, doesn’t want to take a second away from seeing his beautiful dark skin, his eyes alive with sparks and blue flames, the uncharacteristic and dazzling smile on his face as he kisses Kise back. He doesn’t even pay the light sting of his chest any mind.

“I missed you so much,” Kise finally whispers into the hollow of Aomine’s neck, since Aomine’s lips have moved to press sternly against his forehead and remain there, one hand holding Kise’s head still with his eyes closed tight, like he can’t believe Kise is real and here and  _his_.

“Yeah,” he says, pulling back and tucking Kise’s hair behind one of his ears, a gesture so familiar to them both and so tremendously missed in their absence of one another it brings tears to Kise’s eyes. “Me too.”

“You guys are so embarrassing.” Momoi laughs, smirking down at them with arms crossed over her chest. Wakamatsu nods his head and Midorima does too, even Imayoshi who is just beginning the tedious process of piercing someone’s nose is nodding his head in agreement.

Kise hiccups a laugh, finally untangling himself from Aomine only long enough for the both of them to awkwardly stand and then dart to one another’s sides like they’re magnetic.

“Like you wouldn’t react the same way if Riko came back after six months,” Aomine growls in her direction, glaring. Her smirk only grows, her shoulders bouncing up in a delicate shrug.

“And you’re just jealous,” Kise huffs at Wakamatsu, sticking his tongue out playfully.

“If I tried to do to Ryo what you just did to Aomine, it would  _kill her_.” Wakamatsu states, deadpan. Kise nods his head, giving him that one. Aomine’s hand comes down and he pushes his fingers through Kise’s, lacing their fingers together and tugging him closer into his side. Even though Kise had been cold in his layers, he is palpably unsurprised at Aomine’s skimpy attire: a black beanie, a loose gray tank top, black skinny harem pants, and his disgusting old man loafers. Kise almost rolls his eyes.

Just then, he sees a shock of red hair and glances up to meet the piercing stare of Akashi as he makes his way down the walkway and over towards them. He casually glances from Kise to Aomine, gently clearing his throat when he finally comes to stop in front of them.

“How are you?” he asks, and there’s no missing his true intentions. Kise smiles, grateful for his discretion.

“Well! Very well. No problems whatsoever.” He answers, his smile reaching into his ochre eyes. “How about you?”

Akashi smiles, slow and sharp. “I’m well, thank you for asking.” And then without further ado, he turns around and heads calmly back to his station, only pausing once to glance over his shoulder and say, “Welcome back.”

Kise grins so much his cheeks begin to hurt before he glances up at a visibly suspicious Aomine.

“So,” Kise says, turning to completely face Aomine with his lips pursed. “Where  _were_  you? Ya know, when I got here wanting to  _surprise_  you and all.”

From the corner of his eye, Kise sees Wakamatsu stiffen before taking a cautious, sneaky step backwards. He is on his second step, clearly trying to disappear, when Aomine turns to Kise with a grin showing far too many teeth to be nonthreatening.

“Funny story,” he says, eyes turning to pin Wakamatsu in place, cutting through him like blades. “We ran out of paper towels and when I went to tell my handy intern to go get some more, guess what I found instead.”

Kise glances between them, grinning curiously. “What?”

Aomine’s predatory grin widens, eyes narrowing at a visibly fidgeting Wakamatsu. “The entire storeroom, upended.”

“Okay but listen,” Wakamatsu immediately responds, cringing a bit as he holds his hands up and tries to defend myself. “The shelves in there are so short, okay? I hit my head on one and stumbled into another and it’s a really long story but whoever designed the room clearly wasn’t planning for people of my stature.”

Kise cringes, already knowing Aomine’s next response. Sure enough, he says: “ _I_  built that room.”

Wakamatsu cringes again, making a helpless face. “Well then why’d you make the shelves so short? You’re sort of tall, you should understand my struggle!”

“Those shelves were tall,” Aomine responds, monotone. “You’re just the idiot who walked into them. And what d’you mean ‘sort of tall?’ I’m only an inch shorter than you!”

Wakamatsu sniffs, says, “Still shorter than me.”

Aomine looks like he’s a step away from getting physically aggressive, so Kise wraps an arm around him and holds him to his side, sighing loud enough for Wakamatsu to hear him.

“I’ll rip your goddamn head off,” Aomine growls, but for all its worth there really isn’t much menace in his tone. Wakamatsu’s lips purse together and he turns without a word, heading across the shop towards the storeroom. Aomine’s glare follows him the entire way until he gets to the door, turns over his shoulder and throws his hands up in the air.

“I  _know_ ,” he shouts across the room, startling a few of the patrons closest to him and making Aomine’s shoulders tense. “I’ll clean it up right now, geez.”

“ _Such_ ,” Aomine emphasizes, dragging the word out as Wakamatsu disappears into the storeroom, “A fuckin’ kid. Too big for his own damn body.”

“Cut him some slack,” Kise mutters, turning to smile up at Aomine fondly. He watches Aomine’s eyes meet his, search his honey amber eyes and then soften all at once. “He tries so hard to get your approval.”

“He’s mouthy,” Aomine complains, bringing his arms around Kise until they’re locked behind his waist, pulling his hips against him. Before Kise can respond, Aomine looks over his shoulder.

“What’re you all standing around staring at? Back to work!” he snaps, and there’s not a single person he’s directing the statement at but several people laugh and turn back to their work, complacent. He turns back to Kise and sighs again as Kise’s hands rest against his chest, his eyes wide and adoring.

“He is,” Kise accepts, “but he’s also a good person and a hard worker. And accidents happen!”

“His accident is going to cost us an arm and a leg,” Aomine mutters, dejected. Kise grins and from the flicker in Aomine’s eyes, it’s clear he’s wondering something along the lines of how someone who’s already sunshine bright can become white-hot with just a smile; how it moves over his entire face like a sunrise centering in the molten gold of his eyes.

“Well then it’s a good thing you’re dating a millionaire, isn’t it?” Kise jokes, and Aomine’s instantly insulted expression makes him laugh out loud, eyes crinkling.

“Give him a few pointers on his sketches or something. It’d really help him out.” Kise hedges, letting his right hand slide down until it’s right over Aomine’s heart. The taller of the two sighs, gives Kise a long-suffering look before grumpily complying with his suggestions.

“Fine,” he groans, then once more, “ _Fine_.”

“You’re the best, Aominecchi!” and Kise leaps up against him, wraps his arms around his neck for the second time that evening and hums happily into the skin of his neck. He presses the cold tip of his sharp nose there, lets Aomine’s warmth heat him up until he’s no longer shivering, before he finally pulls back and kisses the front of Aomine’s chin. Kise glances up and is surprised to see Aomine blushing enough for it to be blatantly noticeable under his dark skin, making him look even cuter than usual and feeling something like a shard piercing into Kise’s heart.

“Are you ever gonna, ya know,” One of Aomine’s hands comes away from Kise’s waist and rubs nervously at his hairline. His voice drops down an octave, scrapes out as barely more than a whisper. “Call me by my first name?”

Kise’s knees feel weak, his body and chest heavy. His eyes soften and he can hear his pulse loud and clear in his ears, feel the push and pull of it playing tug-of-war behind his ribs. He reaches up and plays with the short hairs just long enough to touch the front of Aomine’s ear, makes to tuck them behind it even though they’re not yet long enough, uncaring that their intimacy is being broadcast for all in the shop to see.

“Do you want me to?” he asks, voice matching Aomine’s in volume. Aomine looks squirmy, like he’s preparing to run. After a long moment of him not looking anywhere near Kise, he jerkily nods his head, his glare turning back to Kise in an almost accusatory manner. Kise smiles.

“Okay.” He says, and it’s that easy. There isn’t much in the world that Kise won’t do for Aomine, especially when he’s flushed deep red and his voice is in tatters because his nerves are so raw they’re practically on the surface. Kise looks up into his deep-sea eyes, at the sharp line of his nose and the slash of a mouth, the hard line of his jaw and the strong edge of his chin, and he feels his heart sing through his veins, bringing every single cell in his body to life.

He leans forward and whispers the words across Aomine’s mouth, a promise and a confession.

“I missed you very much, Daiki.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Midorima is such a gem?? Midorima is Such A Gem. Anyways, thank you for reading! The end is nigh, folks :')


	13. Chapter 13

Kise’s return celebration with all of his friends in The Zone as well as his two favorite bakers, while fun and wonderful, does not last long—even if it was a month later than he’d expected to have it. Not when Aomine kept giving him that impatient look, one that burned right through him, hot and unbearable until he matched it; turning sharp eyes back to Aomine’s with promises laced in the curves of his pupils, dilating to lock on. Not when he moved closer to him until Aomine’s lips were at his ear, touching his skin, offering to help him move his luggage from his hotel into Aomine’s apartment where he’s staying.

They just manage to get Kise’s luggage through the door before Aomine presses Kise up against the wall, his hands sliding around Kise’s hips to come around and grip his ass as the door snaps shut behind them. Kise’s abdomen is a tangle of nerves and excitement, his hands sliding over Aomine’s chest until he’s gripping his muscled shoulders, lifting his head to bare his neck for Aomine’s lips to explore. Aomine groans against him, presses his erection to Kise’s thigh and says something low and filthy enough to make Kise flush, his heart a heavy weight in his chest, jumping rope to the rhythm of every one of Aomine’s touches.

His thoughts are ashes in a wildfire’s wake, scattering and burning a hot trail down his spine, hottest where Aomine palms him. He tries to hold on to them, to catch them in his hands because he knows one of them is important—important enough for him to want to slow down, if only slightly. It comes to him when Aomine paws roughly at the waistline of his jeans, too impatient to want to deal with his button and zipper.

Kise’s hands grip his shoulders and gently push back, his eyes opening to catch Aomine’s without hesitation. Aomine’s expression is as impatient as his hands; he tries to push himself back against Kise, wanting nothing more than to feel every line of him against his bare skin, but Kise’s equally as insistent in pushing him away.

“Oi,” Aomine snarls, finally taking a few steps to back off.

Kise smiles, looks up at him through his lashes and says, “Be patient.”

Aomine’s eyes go wide and bright and he looks moments away from showing Kise what exactly he thinks of  _patience_. Kise doesn’t laugh; he pushes away from the wall and turns towards Aomine’s bedroom, shedding first his cargo jacket and then his black zip-up along the way. He can hear Aomine padding after him; can hear the struggle as Aomine, too, discards his clothes. He can’t help but glance over his shoulder to look at him, to watch Aomine kick his way out of his harem pants and follow after Kise in nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs. Kise inhales, turning back to face forward as they approach Aomine’s room, and starts stepping out of his skinny jeans.

He hears Aomine inhale through his teeth, knowing it’s because he’s revealed the fact that he isn’t wearing underwear—that he hasn’t had anything on under his jeans all day and Aomine hadn’t  _known_.

He struggles for only a moment, but it’s long enough for Aomine to come up behind him, to place his hands on Kise’s hips and pull his ass back against the hard length of him. He groans, low and deep, and Kise thinks it’s going to be impossible to make this last. He lets Aomine push against him even as he gets his foot out of his pant leg and kicks his jeans away, straightening to his full height once more so that he’s standing in front of Aomine in nothing but his thin white shirt.

“Fuck,” Aomine whispers, as Kise looks over his shoulder once more, the nervousness in the pit of his stomach rising up like a storm in side of him. He hasn’t turned to face Aomine yet, can’t quite bring himself to it. The sun shines unhindered throughout Aomine’s apartment, coming in from the window just behind Kise to cast a striking glow around him that catches Aomine’s breath in his throat. His hair, golden and slightly mussed, glows like a halo against the backdrop of the sunshine coming in and Aomine can’t look away.

Aomine’s eyes dance over Kise’s broad shoulders hidden under the almost-transparent white shirt he’s wearing, drop down to the soft curves of his cheeks just barely showing from beneath the hem of his draping shirt; his legs are long and lean and lithe and Aomine doesn’t even seem to realize it when his hand slides over his own cock and begins to rub over the material of his boxer briefs.

“I have a surprise for you,” Kise whispers, smiling a little. He’s still looking over his shoulder at Aomine, not facing him, his bangs obscuring part of his face. He knows that Aomine won’t like that; that he’ll want to walk over to him and push his bangs aside, tuck them behind his ear and reveal the entirety of his face. What he doesn’t know is how Aomine wants to submit every inch of Kise to his memory all over again, trace every inch of him with his eyes, then his fingers, then his lips. He doesn’t move, though, something about Kise’s expression—nervous, playful, pleased that Aomine is accommodating whatever game he’s playing—must make him pause.

“Yeah?” Aomine breathes, voice low as his hand continues to rub over his straining erection.

“Mm,” Kise hums, and he’s doing something with his hands on his chest that Aomine can’t really see, but Kise thinks it’s fairly obvious that he’s playing with his nipples. He watches the look that crosses over Aomine’s face, sharpening his eyes until they’re dangerous, until they’re  _promising_.

Aomine slowly shakes his head, says, “I’m real fucking tired of being patient.”

He hooks his thumbs into the hem of his boxer briefs and tugs them down the columns of his thighs, kicking them off into the corner of the room as his cock comes to rest by his navel. He watches Kise’s eyes trace down his body, jumping and lingering and focusing with clear intent.

Kise bites his lip and stares, unabashed; he continues to play with his nipples until Aomine can’t hold back any longer. He moves forward in three purposeful strides, molds his front to Kise’s back, his hands sliding over Kise’s hips to come up his abs and hold steady against his ribs. Kise lets his head fall back on Aomine’s shoulder, pushing his ass back against him, making him grit his teeth and nudge at Kise’s temple, breathing him in.

Kise’s voice is a wisp of its usual smooth tenor, broken down and breathy. “You’ve been so patient,” he says, “so good.”

Aomine groans into the skin of Kise’s neck at the compliment, embarrassingly turned on by the praise. Kise had been pleasantly surprised to realize that Aomine is actually quite fond of being praised in the bedroom, though he’ll never admit to it unless Kise’s asking him to  _beg_. All Kise has to do is use a certain tone of voice,  _that_  voice, and they both know that Aomine will do anything asked of him while blushing from the tips of his ears to the base of his throat.

Pressed so close as they are now and with the deep current of Kise’s voice thrumming through them, he can feel Amine’s heart pounding against him. He can almost hear Aomine debating, bargaining with himself on how much he’s willing to freely give Kise without him needing the voice to persuade him. He responds with flushed skin and open embarrassment, as if he hates it, but Kise has the memories of his eyes alive and burning for instructions carved into his mind. 

Knowing that Aomine wants it, that sometimes he  _needs_  it—to be praised, to be submissive—is different from knowing that Aomine has  _accepted_  it, even in himself. It doesn’t take long, though, his silly internal bargaining; but Kise waits for him all the same.

Recognition and acceptance come to Aomine in the same sudden way that lightning strikes through a haze of storm clouds; Kise can feel the release of tension, the moment that Aomine realizes that there really isn’t any reason for him to push anything down, not with Kise. Even if it’s as embarrassing as this is, making heat flood his cheeks and his cock with just two simple words, well, what’s so wrong about that?

Kise can sense Aomine’s curiosity even as he lets himself move closer to Kise, touch with more feeling and less uncertainty. He takes the time to wonder; if Aomine had not been so attuned to the mysterious and secretive behavior Kise displayed tonight, would he have pushed forward and tried to do everything in his power to provoke more praise from Kise’s lips? Kise smiles at the thought, fond and pleased because he knows, he  _knows_  that he’s right; that he knows Aomine and his patterns well enough to predict them with utter accuracy. A part of him longs for Aomine to take the first step in that direction, but then his left hand slides up and presses over Kise’s tattoo, a sunset memory full of intimacy and love that he’d allowed Aomine to press permanently into his skin, and he breathes out all of his racing thoughts. 

Aomine traces the tattoo once, twice with deft fingers, kissing the side of Kise’s neck and licking at his pulse as Kise’s hands finally leave his own nipples; he brings them down until his hands are over Aomine’s, encouraging him to touch him.

Kise’s breath hitches in his throat, excitement bubbling to the surface in a high-pitched keen that resonates in his throat; he brings his head away from Aomine’s shoulder, looking down to watch as their hands move together up his ribs and over his pecks until his fingers guide Aomine’s fingers over his nipples, until his secret is revealed under the pads of Aomine’s fingertips, in the way that Aomine inhales through his teeth, his entire body freezing.

“Surprise,” Kise breathes, closing his eyes and smiling as Aomine’s fingers gently rub over the six-month-old barbells pierced through his nipples from over the material of his shirt, almost as if he can’t believe they’re real. Aomine pulls his hands out from under Kise’s so quickly he’s already spinning him around by the time Kise’s eyes open, wide and shocked at the sudden movement, but then Aomine’s kissing him and his tongue is pressing forward, his lips insistent with a groan vibrating into Kise’s mouth.

Kise isn’t sure if he’s conscious of it, but Aomine is pushing him backwards even as their lips clash together, hot and wet and needy. Aomine’s hands are at his sides and Kise realizes that the movement had been deliberate as the backs of his legs hit the bed, bending so that he falls into a sitting position on the edge of the mattress. Aomine grips the hem of his shirt immediately, his eyes brighter than Kise has ever seen them before, reflecting the sunshine that spills through the window and heating Kise from the inside out. Kise lifts his hands and lets Aomine pull the shirt over his head, pushing his chest forward a little when Aomine’s eyes finally glance down and see Kise’s nipple piercings for the first time.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he groans, and then he’s pushing Kise back further on the bed, crawling over his body as Kise arches his back, pushing his chest closer to Aomine just as Aomine leans down to press a delicate kiss to the underside of Kise’s left peck, right over his tattoo. Aomine’s lips trail kisses over his chest until his tongue comes out at last to lick lightly at Kise’s nipple, pushing the barbell around with evident caution.

Kise moans, fingers coming down to card through Aomine’s short hair, pressing him closer and silently asking him for more than just his gentle licks. Aomine obliges; pressing his lips around Kise’s nipple and sucking lightly at the piercing, going so far as to tug lightly with his teeth, though he’s still cautious enough for Kise to notice. His left hand comes up to play lightly with Kise’s other piercing, lightly tracing over it before he pushes himself further up Kise’s body and licks his bottom lip.

“You’re so fucking hot,” he breathes against Kise’s mouth, pressing their noses together and coming back down for another kiss. Kise moans against Aomine’s lips, his legs coming up wrap around Aomine’s hips and press their erections together. The moment he feels the heat of Aomine’s cock against his own, he breaks away from the kiss with a jolt and a gasp, his hands reaching down to grip Aomine’s cheeks and pull their hips as close together as he can manage from his position under Aomine’s weight. Aomine reaches down and grabs both of Kise’s hands, brings them up and pins them to his bed with little resistance from Kise. He holds them there with one hand wrapped around Kise’s wrists, bringing his other hand down to frame Kise’s jaw, tilting his face so that he can suck on the skin there just under the hinge of his jaw.

He moves his hand down Kise’s body, not exploring this time but moving with purpose until his middle finger is poised at Kise’s hole and Kise’s looking up at him like he’s the sun. He slips his finger inside and watches Kise squirm, feels the way his inner muscles clench around him and then relax. He works his ring finger in soon after, watches Kise close his eyes around a third and carefully curls them inside to stretch Kise as best as he can under the circumstances—Aomine is not a patient person by nature.

“More,” Kise begs, his eyes opening and refocusing back on Aomine, sharp and needy. It does not escape him that just a moment ago Kise had been silently keening for Aomine to beg for him, and yet now here he lays, sprawled out and at the mercy of Aomine’s deft fingers, begging without shame. 

Aomine’s fingers slip out of his hole and he releases Kise’s wrists for only a moment, only long enough to reach into his bedside table and retrieve some lube, squirting a generous amount onto the fingers of his left hand and bringing his right back up to keep Kise pinned down. Kise doesn’t mind; he bucks his hips up towards Aomine and almost begs for him to touch his flushed cock.

Aomine grins down at him, slips all three fingers inside of him at once and breathes in the expression that crosses Kise’s face when he feels the stark coldness of the lube against his heated center. Aomine wastes no time in stretching him again, moving his fingers back and forth, opening them as far as he can while his lips continue their assault on Kise’s throat. He can feel every vibration of Kise’s every moan in his lips, can practically taste them.

“Ah,” Kise breathes, then grits his teeth. “Please.”

Aomine is about to accommodate him, Kise knows he’s impatient and charged up, but when he opens his eyes and sees the peculiar spark in his eyes he has to swallow down another  _please_. There’s something wicked there, something playful and dangerous and Kise wonders if he should start fighting back a little rather than continue laying there so openly. He decides to wait it out, to let Aomine do whatever it is he’s planning, and waits for Aomine to press into him.

Instead, Aomine doesn’t remove his fingers at all; he curls them inside of Kise and whispers, voice gruff but just edging on saccharine, “Be patient.”

Kise’s eyes narrow, glaring at him with enough force to be impressive but nowhere near enough to make Aomine change his mind. He laughs, low and throaty, and continues to piston his fingers in and out of Kise, leaning all of his weight on the elbow resting by Kise’s head.

Kise’s hands begin to strain against Aomine’s hold, wanting to be released so that he can touch Aomine’s skin, but he holds steady and keeps him pinned. Kise whines, a low keen, but then Aomine is finally removing his fingers and Kise thinks  _oh,_ and  _yes_ , and waits for the pressure.

He expects Aomine to go slow, to prod first and slip cautiously in, inch-by-inch. It’s what he’s used to.

Aomine does not go slow.

He pushes into Kise with one strong thrust and pulls all the way out before beginning a grueling pace, pounding into Kise with so much force Kise’s starts to slide up the bed a little, his breath coming out forcefully with every flick of Aomine’s hips. Aomine brings his free hand up to help hold Kise’s hands down over his head, his chest and pierced nipples pressing against Kise’s in a way that pleases Kise—reminds him that now they have this in common.

Kise arches his back and pushes closer to the hot, slick stretch as Aomine continues to fuck into him, panting out his name and curling his fingers so tightly into his own palms he thinks the crescents left behind might never leave. Aomine’s hot breaths come against Kise’s ear in time with his thrusts and even though Aomine still hasn’t touched his cock, he can feel the beginnings of his own orgasm in his lower abdomen.

“Daiki, Daiki, Daiki,” he chants, a mantra to keep him grounded, to keep him sane. Aomine presses his cheek against Kise’s and groans, long and low and straight from his gut as he comes inside of Kise with one last jerky thrust. His body falls heavily on top of Kise for just a moment as Aomine tries to get his bearings back, his hands loosening around Kise’s wrists.

Kise takes pity on him, carefully pushing him over so that he’s lying on his back, his head somewhere near the center of the bed, feet dangling off the side. Kise’s cock is still hard and red and painful, pressed tight against his lower abdomen as he crawls over Aomine’s body and positions himself.

Aomine lets himself be moved and jostled, his heavy eyes watching Kise move around and over him until he’s positioning his knees under Aomine’s armpits and his hands up above Aomine’s head, his heavily erect cock right in front of his face. Kise, still struggling to breathe, looks down and catches Aomine’s eyes with an enigmatic grin, his eyes shining.

He says, “I think I’ve been patient enough.”

Aomine’s hands come down to rest on the backs of Kise’s thighs, right under his firm cheeks. His grin spreads quick and dangerous across his face like a wildfire and then he’s pushing Kise forward until his cockhead is touching Aomine’s lips, his tongue coming out to lap up a tiny bead of precome.

Kise hangs his head down and tries to keep his focus on the way Aomine slowly and lovingly begins to lick at his cock, but his eyes press shut of their own accord when Aomine’s tongue finds the underside of his cockhead. He presses Kise even closer and he hums in his throat as Aomine’s lips finally wrap around him, pushing Kise’s hips forward so that he can take him deeper.

Kise’s hips begin to move as carefully as he can manage while at his wit’s end, riding Aomine’s face and shivering from the still-present aftershocks of Aomine’s orgasm. Aomine moans around Kise’s cock when Kise presses forward a little more insistently than he’d originally intended, the vibrations running along the length of him until he can feel them riding along the build up of his orgasm.

When Kise presses forward again, still a little more insistent than he’d planned on being, Aomine’s hands squeeze his thighs and hold him there as he sucks hard enough for his cheeks to hollow out and ends it all with a swallow. Kise moans, trying to get Aomine’s name out but it’s a shattered broken thing that matches the orgasm unwinding inside of him as he comes in Aomine’s mouth.

His thighs are quivering by the time he slowly pulls his back, watching him swallow immediately afterwards with an incredibly lewd grin. Kise falls beside him and is immediately pulled in against Aomine’s side, his cheek resting against Aomine’s left peck where his nipple piercing is stark in Kise’s view. He can’t help it: he pushes forward a bit and licks at it, presses his lips to it and bites at the piercing with a playful sort of curiosity that has Aomine’s half-hard cock slowly starting to stand to attention once again.

Aomine smiles, pressing Kise closer so that his lips stay pressed around his nipple, pressing idle kisses to the tender skin. He looks up at him through his lashes, tired but utterly turned on by the effortless way that Aomine seems to get hard in response to Kise’s ministrations.

He seems pensive for a moment, still fondly watching Kise suck at his nipple and trace circles against his chest with his left hand. After a moment of deliberation he says, “I can’t believe you got your nipples pierced by someone other than me.”

Kise pulls back from his nipple, lips wet and slightly swollen. “It was a surprise!  _For_  you!”

“Obviously,” Aomine rolls his eyes, the hand he has in Kise’s hair carding through it a couple of times, the motions as comforting as they are soothing.

“But I’m still a little jealous.” He scowls as he says it, rubs his fingers against Kise’s scalp in a gentle massage. “Who did them? They look gorgeous. And they’re healing well.”

Kise, for his part, absolutely preens. He rolls a little on his back and pushes his chest forward, looking fondly down at his new piercings and seeing the way that his left nipple is far darker than his right one. He flushes, realizing that Aomine had spent a generous amount of time lavishing that particular nipple with attention. He feels hot all over, his skin so sensitive he can even feel the wrinkles of the blankets against his back and legs.

“Akashicchi.” He answers, grinning up at Aomine. A disturbing thought seems to come to Aomine, flashing through his eyes as he sleepily glances down at Kise, scowling.

“When did you get them done?” 

 _Ah_ , Kise thinks, flushing prettily and shrugging in a sheepish manner.

“About six months ago. I had to sneak back here and get them done while you weren’t around, since it was gonna be a secret.”

“You were here?” Aomine asks, tone indignant. “You came back?”

“Well, yeah.” Kise looks up at him and feels happiness build up inside of him, curling and settling on the underside of his heart, making the muscle feel lighter in his chest. “I had to come back to get them done; I barely stayed for more than an hour.”

The peeved expression on Aomine’s face is enough to make Kise hum happily against him, settling his cheek back against his chest, pressing his body closer to Aomine’s heat. The quiet of Aomine’s room falls around them like nightfall, steady and soothing.

Aomine’s fingers resume their comforting exploration over his scalp, carding through his hair and combing it back in a rhythmic manner that makes Kise drowsy within seconds. His heart swells and he can’t stop smiling even though he’s about to pass into unconsciousness—he’s just too damn happy.

Aomine had  _missed_  him. It’s so obvious and Aomine isn’t even really trying to hide it, either. He may have initially responded with a little grumpiness, but the gentle way his fingers continue to play with Kise’s hair and the every now and again content hum he emits tells Kise that he’s not mad at all.

In a lazy drawl Kise feels down to his bones, Aomine asks, “How did Kobori respond to the piercings?”

Kise grins against Aomine’s chest. “He was not pleased.”

“Mm,” Aomine hums, contemplative.

“There was definitely progress though,” Kise adds, tone a little lighter. “He was more exasperated than anything else. The tattoo was the real milestone we had to leap over. I can still picture his face when I showed him—red as a tomato.”

“He should get one,” Aomine says, sounding utterly serious. And of course he is, Kise thinks, of course it’s completely rational for Aomine to think that the be-all and end-all cure for anything is to get a tattoo. “Maybe I’ll give him a discount.”

Kise snorts, saying, “I’ll pass on the message.”

Aomine glances down at the golden crown of Kise’s head; fingers still working absentmindedly through his fine hair.

“Hey,” he starts, waiting until Kise glances up at him. “Do your nipples hurt?”

Flushing across the bridge of his nose even whilst giving Aomine a lascivious glance, Kise shakes his head. “They’re a little tender and sensitive but they’re fine.”

“They look fucking amazing.” Aomine says again, as if to emphasize his point.

“You said that already.” Kise smiles, exultant. Then in a far quieter voice; “I’m glad you like them.”

Aomine’s free hand lifts from his side and comes up to rest on his chest, but not before lacing his fingers between that of Kise’s left hand. There’s a long moment of silence where Kise’s not entirely certain how quickly or slowly time is passing; all he knows is that he slips in and out of consciousness against the warm heat of Aomine’s body multiple times until Aomine’s rasping voice rouses him.

He says, “I still can’t believe you’re back.”

Kise’s first inclination is to reassure Aomine that he’s not going to be leaving again for a long time, and even then, that he’ll always come back—to Seattle, to The Zone, to Aomine. Always to Aomine.

But he doesn’t want to wallow in a gloomy mood, has had enough of self-doubt and melancholy for a lifetime; so instead he puts on a playful pout, sliding a little further up Aomine’s body and leaning up on his elbow to peer down at his beautifully grumpy face. The pout doesn’t last long—it can’t, not when Aomine’s pouting  _even harder_. Kise’s lips turn up and his entire expression shifts to his usual mischievous grin, eyes whispering dangerous promises straight to Aomine’s soul.

“Oh Daiki,” he sings, almost laughing. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

Kise slips his hand out of Aomine’s, moves it across Aomine’s chest, fingertips catching first on one pierced nipple and then the other. He watches Aomine’s pout slide off of his face as his hand moves down the firm line of his abs, presses a little closer once he reaches the soft skin of the inner curl of his hip. Aomine, knowing  _exactly_  where this is going, sucks in a deep breath.

And Kise watches him unravel at his fingertips.

 

✧

 

It takes only one conversation with Aomine about consent and the consequences of it and four days of being in Seattle with him constantly at his side for the media to realize that Kise’s affections have found another mark. The news of it spreads far and wide and soon enough there are people hounding them with cameras and questions and prying remarks wherever they go. Aomine, for his part, is an amazing buffer to paparazzi because the majority of them are straight up terrified of him while the rest learn to keep their distance and get their money shots from further away.

Kise apologizes furtively to Aomine for all of the attention, hands on his sides and looking up into his beautifully sharp eyes with a frown on his face, not for the first time in his life feeling bitterness at this side of his career. Yet every time he apologizes, Aomine tells him that it’s okay, that he’d known what he was getting into before he ever agreed to it. Kise had made sure that they spoke about the potential consequences immediately after his return to Seattle, fearful that someone might catch on before he could brief Aomine on the entire situation and all that it encompassed.

But no one had interrupted him and he’d been able to sit down over Chinese food with a movie in the background, playing footsies with Aomine across the table as he described what was to be expected. Aomine had listened well, though Kise would’ve liked for him to have asked some questions or something so that he truly, one hundred percent knew what he was getting himself into. When Kise had, a little agitatedly, told him that his face was going to be plastered everywhere because of his association to Kise and that people might not like him or agree with their relationship—and they would be  _verbal_  about it—Aomine had merely given him a look.

“I don’t give a shit about any of those people,” he’d said, yawning. “Just you.”

And that’d been touching and Kise had kissed the breath right out of him immediately afterwards for it but it still didn’t mean that Aomine would be completely comfortable with the lifestyle that came with dating a world famous model and part-time actor, not until he was actually  _living_  it.

But then, as Aomine so often does, he surprises Kise with how  _okay_  with everything he actually is. He has no qualms about flipping persistent paparazzi off and telling them where to stick miscellaneous things when they crowd them on the street, both of which always make Kise laugh out loud. The paparazzi and the talk show hosts that cover their relationship seem the most baffled out of everyone, mostly because what they see of Aomine is a big dangerous grump, and what they know of Kise is nothing more than absolute sunshine. But the pictures they snap of the couple are undeniable: Kise is glowing in every one of them.

Even when spring showers come and Kise is cold and sick, a massive scarf wrapped around his throat and mouth while he snuggles into Aomine’s side on their way to The Zone, photographers still can’t get a bad shot of his dark-haired lover.

Another one of Kise’s favorite surprising developments about their relationship being publicized is how beautifully photogenic Aomine is. Even when his raised middle finger and scowl are the focus of a picture, he just naturally looks good from every angle—it’s beginning to frustrate the people who want to drag him through the mud. No matter how they heckle him or how they try to catch him in a compromising position—like making out with Kise in an alleyway outside of a really quaint bakery—they still only manage to get a shot of his shirt pushed up a bit to expose perfectly crafted abdominals.

Kise has never laughed so much in his entire life as he does when he’s with Aomine, and that’s  _saying_  something; he loves to laugh. Aomine literally cannot be bothered to give two shits about the photographers or what people are saying about him or even the positive things that have come out of the world knowing that he’s dating the famous Kise Ryouta—like the increased interest in his tattoo shop. His list of clients doesn’t necessarily skyrocket, but there is a definite inflation that surprises him enough to make him double-check his schedule. When Kise had wondered if that was okay, too, not wanting Aomine to lose the intimacy of a small shop with a small, personal clientele base, Aomine had wrapped a hand gently around the back of Kise’s neck and pressed their foreheads together, whispering  _of course I don’t mind_.

Kise hadn’t known how long they were going to be the highlighted story, but after a few weeks the crowds around them slowly begin to lessen and then disperse altogether. Kise is noticed more often on the streets of Seattle, though, and with him Aomine becomes a sort of local celebrity, which is both the most hilarious and endearing thing Kise has ever seen.

He gets discounts on the silliest things, like coffee and pens and plant pots from local stores. More people come to check out The Zone, even if they aren’t planning on getting anything done, though they usually are.

After a while it becomes apparent that the photographers and reporters sent to record them as a couple don’t quite know what to do with Aomine Daiki. In fact, Aomine might just be the best person for this kind of situation—being in the spotlight at all times and faced with people who are pushy and aggressive. Aomine is equal parts apathetic and aggressive about reporters, most often responding to them with attitudes along the line of the former but sometimes slipping into the latter when those brave enough to tread on his buttons come forth.

They find out the hard way that Aomine is not the kind of person that they can trifle with, and this umbrella of protection spreads out and encompasses Kise’s privacy as well. Aomine takes to the role of someone in the public-eye incredibly well because he literally cannot care less about anything that the public is interested in—especially if it’s something they’re interested in about him. Reporters brave enough (or inexperienced enough) to ask him direct questions are frequently met with increasingly irritating non-answers that never cease to make Kise laugh. Mostly he just grunts at them and the actual answers he does offer them are usually just as inscrutable.

Kise’s favorite responses that he’s seen or heard from Aomine include:  _I don’t give a shit_ ,  _what the fuck does that mean_ ,  _who is that_ ,  _what is that_ ,  _I don’t care_ , and his all time favorite:  _Nah, I have to piss_.

Aomine becomes the most boring and irritating subject for reporters to try to understand, and eventually it progresses to the extent where they actually just start leaving him alone altogether. Even when he’s with Kise, they stay scarce.

In the times when Kise is by himself with no brooding boyfriend at his side, they often try to ask him about Aomine and their relationship, figuring that since they can’t get anything out of Aomine himself that they’ll come to their favorite charismatic model instead. But Kise finds far too much amusement in continuing the challenge that Aomine unintentionally warrants from paparazzi and gives them similarly vague answers in return. He mostly just talks about how wonderful Aomine is, how talented and how much he loves him, which simultaneously gives them nothing and embarrasses the hell out of Aomine.

So, a win-win.

The entire public-eye situation never ceases to amaze Kise, though. In all of his years working as a model and being prominent enough to be stopped on any street corner, he never would’ve guessed that Aomine’s presence in his life as his partner would be such an impressive buffer between the media and his normal everyday lifestyle. Eventually, they finally stop pushing questions about Aomine and their relationship on Kise and return to the normal career-based and individualistic questions, which is good for both Kise and his short-tempered boyfriend.

By the time everything settles down, Kise has been in Seattle for just over two months. He’s staying at Aomine’s place and it’s gotten to the point where it’s actually more like  _their_  place. Aomine pretends like this isn’t a huge deal, like it doesn’t make him flustered every time Kise says something about it, but he never fails to miss a chance at telling Kise in a very grumpy manner that he’s sort of happy to have him there. Beyond similarly cute and domestic settings, Kise and Aomine find that living together also does wonders for their sexual appetites.

Just this morning they’d made breakfast together with Aomine bragging about the perfect flip trajectory and dimensions of his omelettes—a skill he has apparently been crafting while Kise has been away, and specifically for Kise’s benefit—and had quickly dissolved into them making out against the counter before they were both able to enjoy Aomine’s surprisingly delicious omelettes.

Before long the sweet air of freedom they both share with one another comes to a screeching halt as Kise’s work comes calling once again. However, this time it’s only about a month and he’ll still be in the States; New York isn’t  _that_  far away, right?

Just on the exact opposite side of the country. Regardless, Kise isn’t worried about the distance. He’s still a little upset that the trip required that he miss celebrating Aomine’s birthday with him, though he prepared aptly for the hindrance.

He and Aomine share a kiss on their front steps, slow and tender, a proper parting message neither of them oppose before they part ways. Aomine heads towards the street, preparing to call a cab to head to a conference in Newcastle when Kise calls out to him, his tone playful.

“What?” Aomine grunts, turning to frown at him from down his walkway. The sun casts golden rays down onto him and he squints because of it, obviously a little annoyed, though Kise thinks he looks beautiful.

“I’m leaving you a gift for your birthday, since I’m going to miss it. You can’t look at it until it’s your actual birthday though, okay?”

Aomine snorts. “What, are you gonna come back and arrest me if I look too soon?”

Kise’s smile spreads slow and lifts high, showing teeth. He tilts his head, saying, “You wish, Daiki.”

Aomine seems to puzzle over his, shifting his satchel a little and then shrugging with a telling grin on his face. Kise laughs and it sounds like a symphony.

“Since I won’t be here,” Kise says, sobering a little. “Happy early birthday, Daiki.”

Aomine rolls his eyes, but Kise is willing to bet a fortune that his cheeks are pink.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, distractedly pulling at the material of his blue shirt. He glances away from Kise, watching a few cars pass by. Then: “Thanks.”

“See you soon,” Kise calls, and his smile is catching even though neither of them is pleased about temporarily separating again. Aomine waves a hand and flags a cab with ease, lugging himself and his one bag inside and driving off with another careless wave through the window, which Kise returns with far too much enthusiasm.

Kise sighs, glancing at his phone to check the time. He’s got a six hour flight to New York ahead of him, but the reminder of what he’s going to be coming home to helps fuel his positivity, adding a little skip into his normal step.

 

✧

 

Kise’s plane touches down back in Seattle thirty-four days later. It’s September 4th and he’s arriving back home earlier than he’d expected, but he still just barely misses Aomine’s birthday. Other than the roiling bitterness left behind in his gut from wanting to have spent Aomine’s birthday together because it’s their first year together as a couple and they’d already spent  _Kise’s_  birthday together, he’s otherwise not too worried about having missed it. Mostly because he’d already gotten Aomine his presents before leaving to New York, though he’s fairly certain his favorite present has already been tossed into the garbage disposal with a derisive grunt to accompany it.

Kise mentally shrugs as he jostles his luggage and the bags strapped around his chest, pushing their front door open with his shoulder and calling out, “Daiki? I’m home!”

He steps inside and hears Aomine’s low grunt of, “Welcome home,” from somewhere inside the apartment, raising a brow. He kicks the door shut behind him, trying not to topple over under the weight of all of the bags slung over his shoulders. He still has the rolling luggage handle gripped in one hand, sliding it over to the wall and away from the front door so that he can start shedding the layers of bags he’s been carrying since the airport. He’d decided to take them himself rather than getting someone to help him, wanting to try it out and get a feel for having more independence, but now he’s thinking: was it worth it?

Not to mention that he’d been in  _New York_  and as such has now returned home with far more clothes and knickknacks than he’d left with, which Aomine is definitely going to say something about. Not that Kise minds.

He pulls a strap over his head and lets one of the heaviest carry-on bags drop to the floor with a loud whoosh, his shoulder stinging where the strap has cut into his skin. He kicks the bag over against the wall so that he doesn’t trip over it, sliding the second and far lighter carry-on bag over his head from the other shoulder and flinging it on top of the first almost carelessly. He honestly doesn’t even remember all that he’d bought that could’ve made these bags so heavy and so crammed, but he supposes that he’ll figure it out when he finally unloads everything.

He’s in the process of unraveling a beige Zara plaid scarf from around his neck, unhitching the end of it when it catches on his red velvet blazer, when he calls out, “Where are you?”

Aomine’s response is immediate, though his tone sounds as bored as ever. “In the bedroom.”

“Shouldn’t you be surprised and running happily into my arms?” Kise calls, smirking when he imagines what kind of expression this will bring about on Aomine’s face; something strained and incredulous and probably close to the expression Aomine gets when he’s constipated. “I’m earlier than we both expected.”

He hears Aomine snort. “You’re still late.”

Kise rolls his eyes as he finally gets the scarf off of his neck and shoulders, tossing it on top of his luggage and turning to walk over to the kitchenette to offer it a cursory glance, wondering if Aomine has changed anything. The only new article is a towel with a basketball on it that Kise thinks he might’ve seen in Kagami and Kuroko’s apartment, so he turns away from the kitchenette and heads through the living room and towards the sound of Aomine’s voice as he calls, “And why the fuck would I run into your arms? That’s lame.”

Kise scowls, wanting to roll his eyes again as he heads down the short hallway towards their bedroom with an exasperated sigh. “I’m sorry I missed your birthday. I know I keep telling you, but I do feel bad about it,” he explains before turning the corner and taking a step through the bedroom doorway and automatically freezing in place, his rapidly widening eyes locking on Aomine as his mouth drops open around a soft gasp.

Aomine is lying on his stomach on the bed with his ass facing the door, and he’s in nothing but the powder blue lace-back panties that Kise had gotten him for his birthday over a month ago—the panties that Kise had thought he’d scoff at before promptly disposing of. He’s reading a magazine and Kise knows without looking that it’s gravure; he flips a page almost carelessly before glancing over his shoulder with a smirk sharper than razors.

He shifts his hips a little, watching Kise’s eyes follow the movement with rapt attention, and says, “Oh, don’t worry. You’ll make it up to me.”

“You’re wearing them,” Kise breathes, still unable to look away from the way the lace lovingly molds to Aomine’s firm ass. The powder blue looks beautiful against his dark skin tone and the tattoos just above the material seem even brighter than usual, making Kise feel a little dizzy. He leans against the doorframe for support, eyes finally lifting back up to Aomine’s and studying the slightly flushed, almost coy expression on his face.

His tone had been all confidence, completely self-assured, but his eyes aren’t holding Kise’s gaze and the blond feels a little breathless with wonder that even though Aomine is wearing the panties, even though he’s clearly been  _planning_  this, planning for Kise to find him laying so provocatively, he’s nervous and even more than that, he’s  _unsure_  of himself and how he looks in the panties.

Kise forgets how to breathe; he bites down on his lip and exhales noisily through his teeth.

“Fuck,” he says, a single staccato beat. Aomine glances back up to him, scowling now because he’s nervous and a little unsure of how to move on from here; but Kise knows exactly what to do, moves towards him on light feet with heavy eyes and smiles so fondly at Aomine the grump has to look away. He pretends to look at his magazine again, idly flipping pages while grumbling something under his breath Kise doesn’t quite catch. That’s fine, he thinks, sliding his red velvet blazer off of his shoulders and letting it drop to the floor behind him as he makes his way onto the bed, sliding over Aomine’s back to press a chaste kiss between his shoulder blades.

Aomine continues to pretend like he’s ignoring him as Kise presses gentle kisses down the entire length of his spine, whispering compliments between every kiss. Aomine flinches a little when Kise’s lips press to the top of his tailbone, just before the line of his ass begins. His teeth tug playfully with the lace edge of the panties, hands sliding up the backs of Aomine’s thighs before gently grasping his cheeks and massaging. Aomine makes a noise he probably isn’t proud of, though Kise closes his eyes and grins for a moment at having heard it.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers against Aomine’sskin, pressing a tender kiss and then biting him lightly. Aomine jumps, turning to look over his shoulder and glare at Kise, a reprimand on his lips. But Kise’s letting his tongue trace the slanting curve of the lace’s edge all the way from Aomine’s crease to his hip, teeth tugging a little more insistently even as he never looks away from Aomine’s glare. The reprimand seems to get lost somewhere with the sulky expression on Aomine’s face, as it shifts into something a little more needy.

“Oi,” he mutters, still trying to hold on to his irritable nature. “If you’re gonna do  _that_ , then quit messing around and take ‘em off.”

“Mm,” Kise hums, nodding against him. He runs his hands over the lace one more time, almost contemplative before glancing up and meeting Aomine’s eyes with a smile so pure and so unbefitting of his intentions it makes Aomine’s head spin. “Another time. Today, I want you to keep them on.”

Kise crawls along the line of Aomine’s body until his hands are by Aomine’s shoulders, his lips coming down to press against Aomine’s jaw, his cheek, and then his lips. Aomine breathes into the kiss, relaxing a little with the familiar territory. Kise’s still pressed against every line of his back, though, and Aomine can feel his erection even through his jeans, rubbing against the soft lace over his ass.

Kise’s hands slide over Aomine’s skin with a gentleness that Aomine responds to as though he’s been craving it for the past month, shaking from his need of it. Kise’s lips move to his ear as his left hand slides around Aomine’s left hip and he whispers, “Lift your hips up.”

Aomine accommodates him, still blushing because he feels like he looks stupid in the panties, even if the sight of him in them had literally taken Kise’s breath away. Kise’s hand slides over the soft material of them, stroking Aomine’s rapidly forming erection as he whispers reassurances in his ear, kissing the tender skin behind it and rubbing his forehead against the side of Aomine’s head like a nuzzling kitten.

Kise’s reassurances turn into compliments and he peppers Aomine with praise about how he looks in the panties Kise had bought for him, how he  _moves_  in them, and Aomine suddenly seems to find breathing to be a challenge. Kise’s rubbing himself in slow arcs against Aomine’s ass and it’s only because he has excellent self control that he hasn’t already removed his pants and briefs and fucked into Aomine the moment he insinuated that he is open to being eaten out. Kise would be lying if he said he hadn’t ever thought about it, wondering how he could bring it up in conversation with Aomine.

_Hey, so, here’s a thought: can I lick your ass?_

But Aomine had done all of the hard work for him and in such a simple manner that Kise’s surprise matches his excitement, and if he hadn’t already had plans for Aomine and these beautiful blue panties, then he would’ve taken him up on the offer in a heartbeat.

Alas, he  _does_  have plans, so he leans forward and takes Aomine’s lips again, sliding his tongue against the edges of his teeth and grinning as his right hand comes down to unbutton, unzip, and ultimately begin the awkward process of sliding his jeans down his narrow hips. He manages well enough—gets his cock out with his jeans staying somewhere just above his knees. He begins to slowly stroke himself, pulling back a bit to moan quietly against Aomine’s jaw, his eyes squeezed shut.

Aomine, clearly impatient, grunts, “When are you going to take them off and fuck me? It  _is_  my birthday.”

Kise’s eyes open and he smiles against Aomine’s cheek, laughing a little as his fist tightens ever so slightly. “I told you already,” he whispers, bending his head down to suck at the rounded muscle of Aomine’s shoulder. “You’re going to keep them on.”

“The fuck?” Aomine mutters, confused and more than a little breathy.

Kise moves his hand away from his straining cock and slides the lace material of Aomine’s panties to the side, sliding his pointer finger along the line of him before dipping in to tease. He curses roughly against Aomine’s shoulder, glances up and sees Aomine’s cheeks burning but his lips curled into a self-satisfied smirk.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Kise says again, feeling a little shaky. “You prepared yourself for me?”

“Yeah,” Aomine says, carelessly, like it’s not a big deal. “A couple times today, just to make sure I got the timing right. You were  _late_.”

“Oh my God,” Kise breathes, trembling. Just thinking about Aomine alone in this apartment, fingering himself  _multiple times_  with lube-covered fingers and then slipping the panties over his strong, narrow hips all with Kise in mind is enough to test Kise’s self control, his cock jumping against the lace of Aomine’s ass. He presses himself closer; lets Aomine  _feel_  his reaction and bites a little against the skin of Aomine’s shoulder. Aomine hisses and Kise moves his fingers away, holding the lace of the panties to the side as he finally pushes his hips forward.

Aomine groans; “Finally.”

“Yeah,” Kise agrees, too shaken to contribute much more than that. “Yeah.”

Kise takes his time with Aomine, kissing him so much his lips are red and swollen and his breathing is a labored effort; by the time Aomine finally begs him for release his restraint is in tatters anyways, hanging on by a single thread. He works Aomine off in his hand against their bed and then follows immediately afterward; coming inside of Aomine, not for the first time, but the sight of his cock buried in Aomine’s ass and surrounded by blue lace is something Kise is never going to forget for the rest of his life.

He also may be planning on buying other colors, and wearing some of them too.

He has to convince Aomine to stand for a few moments afterwards, so that he can strip the bed of the filthy sheets, curling them into a ball and pushing Aomine back onto the bed where he lays splayed on his stomach with his head turned to the side, a little dazed. Kise laughs at him, uncaring of Aomine’s pride as he sets the sheets in the dirt laundry hamper he’d also gotten Aomine for his birthday. It’s surprisingly bare and Kise doesn’t know if he should be worried about that or not.

He returns to the bed and drops right beside Aomine, his muscles sore and his body hot. They turn to one another and wrap their arms around each other with Aomine’s leg thrown over Kise’s hips, breathing the same air, a position so familiar to them they barely even notice themselves doing it.

They drift off into sleep curled around one another, dreaming of beginnings. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. "Homecomings" fits a little...too literally...in this context, if you know what I mean (blushes and laughs) Leave it to me to go out with a bang! Just the epilogue after this. As always, thank you so much for sticking with this story and for being so kind to it and me :')


	14. Chapter 14

Kise wakes up before Aomine does, which is surprising. Lazy as he is, Aomine has grown to be an early riser—he likes to sit in front of the TV with a cup of coffee and sketch, work on designs, or even just move around in his own space until he’s ready to head over to The Zone. It’s usually Kise that stays in bed longer, snuggling into sheets warmed from his and Aomine’s body heat, smelling of the both of them together; a strangely comforting mix of something vaguely spicy and something more on the sweet side.

On this morning, however, Kise wakes up and rolls out of bed to greet the cold air on his still-heated skin with a yawn before Aomine has even opened his eyes. He’s still laying there in his slightly stretched out blue panties, sheets strewn about and arms spread wide to encompass the entire width of the bed. Kise smiles down at him, leans back over and runs his fingers through Aomine’s close-cropped hair, pressing butterfly kisses to the delicate skin his cheek and then an actual kiss to the dragon’s head on his shoulder.

He slides away, slipping back into his briefs and then, almost as an afterthought, one of Aomine’s shirts lying on the floor. He doesn’t even flinch when he picks it up and is overcome with the smell of axe body spray, slips it on over his head and wears it with a smile. He heads into the kitchen and begins the process of brewing coffee, not really for himself since he’s more of a tea kind of guy, but for Aomine.

He heads back into the bedroom and heads over to the window, staring out at the rows and rows of buildings around them, and then so much further out, the outlines of evergreen mountains covered in a light layer of fog. He feels nostalgic looking out at those mountains, remembering when he’d first landed in Seattle so many months ago and thought them caging, like being surrounded by them meant there was no escape and he wouldn’t be able to breathe normally so long as he was there.

He looks at them now and he sees rebirth climbing up and down the planes of them, all the way to the snow-tipped tops. Washington is covered in foliage, everything thriving big and tall and bright and there’s just so much  _green_  it’s impossible for Kise to see anything but beginnings anywhere he looks—even when Seattle is more industrial, more fond of architecture and lights and the bustle of a busy city, there are new beginnings around every corner.   
Even behind him, just over his shoulder lying nearly naked in bed, his favorite beginning, snoring loud enough to shame a chainsaw.

He wonders how in the world he could’ve ever looked at these surroundings, at the intricate architecture and the bright flowers growing on nearly every street corner, at the beautiful complexity of the cloudy sky with hints of blue peeking through the light gray cover, soft as cotton, and felt trapped. There isn’t a single place on Earth left to him that can make him feel as comfortable as he does here, in this relatively small area, with the people he has grown to know and love surrounding him.

He thinks that in a way, they’re kind of like the mountains, too. Solid and secure, thriving with life and energy and growing each and every day, relentlessly pressing forward without ever looking back. Each and every one of his new friends, even the shaky and insecure Furihata, has ink pressed into their skins, steel pierced through their bodies. So many earthly creations permanently influencing their characters, so much creativity and talent and passion lacing the very skins they’re living in.

And he’s one of them.

He has the steel, has had it through his ear ever since he was just a boy. It’s just that now he has more, a gift to himself and a gift to Aomine, two simple straight barbells that had brightened both his and Aomine’s lives, even if just for a moment. He’s got ink staining his skin, too, still can’t believe it sometimes until he’s looking in the mirror and he sees the magnanimous colors all flourishing together, perfectly blended, lovingly placed, creating the memory from his childhood that he can never get back.

He reaches a hand up to it now, under Aomine’s shirt and presses his fingertips against his skin. He’d come here thinking that it’s just another job thrown into the chaos of his lonely life, wondering when he’d ever be able to settle down a little and actually look forward to something.

He has found everything here; love and belonging in a group of people that accept and care for him, that took him in when he was lost, not only on the side of the road in a city he’d never been in, but in the grand and intricately interweaving paths of life.

They had taken him in with open arms, even when he had been so strange a creature in their eyes—someone of the public eye, whose job is to cater to the desires of others by improving himself aesthetically.  _So strange_ , he thinks, of them to accept him so wholeheartedly when they are so strongly independent, so obviously passionate about catering to their own dreams and desires for the simple fact of living.

Yet, there really isn’t that much a difference between what each of them do, is there? Both of them work for themselves and others, wanting to spread their passion in as unique and individualized a way as possible.

There’s nothing wrong with how he lives, nor how they live, that’s not it at all—it’s the fact that he came to a place that the world told him he’d never fit into, a puzzle piece without a matching puzzle.

And now he is irreplaceable in The Zone, permanent like ink.

“You’re thinking too loud, idiot.” Aomine grumbles from behind him, his voice a low rasp, still half asleep. Kise glances over his shoulder just as the sun peeks through the light cloud cover, a star falling through the atmosphere, and grins at Aomine’s half-asleep scowl and narrowed eyes. He’s flipped onto his back, one hand scratching idly at his belly button and his other arm thrown over his forehead.

“Good morning.” Kise greets, cheery and upbeat.

“Is it?” Aomine grumbles cryptically, letting his arm come down to cover his eyes. He groans into his elbow, blowing a raspberry against his skin before hoisting himself up into a sitting position. The sheets fall to cover his crotch and he seems to have either forgotten that he’s still wearing the powder blue panties or he’s simply stopped caring about how he looks in them. After the previous night, with Kise telling and  _showing_  him how emphatically happy about the panties he is, he’ll be surprised if it isn’t the latter.

Kise gestures for Aomine to come over to him, rolling his eyes when Aomine merely gives him a deadpan look. After a moment of stubbornness, he slides off the bed and crudely adjusts himself in the panties before heading over to where Kise is standing. If Kise hadn’t been so focused on staring at all of Aomine’s visible tattoos in the fresh daylight, he probably would’ve made a snide remark about that. Aomine gives him a once over as he comes to stand next to him—clearly recognizing his own shirt on Kise’s body—crossing his arms over his bare chest, utterly unabashed about his attire.

“What’s so interesting?” Aomine asks, looking away from Kise to scan outside the window as if he’s expecting fireworks or a nuclear plume in the sky. Kise gives him a fond look, exasperated, but fond. He slides his hand across the back of Aomine’s tailbone, not a sexual touch but an intimate one—something that he likes to do when he’s well and truly happy. He stands a little behind Aomine, having to balance on the tips of his toes to rest his chin on Aomine’s shoulder in a comfortable manner. He wraps his arms around Aomine’s waist and ignores the way he grunts, saying, “You’re cold as frickin’ ice, Ryouta.”

Even with the snarky remark, he brings his own hands up to cover Kise’s on his abdomen, rubbing the warmth back into them. Kise hums against the back of his shoulder, pressing a kiss there.

“It’s beautiful,” Kise explains, ignoring the ice comment. “When I first got here I didn’t really understand. But now when I look out and see everything it just feels…right.”

Aomine snorts. “Sap.” But then after a long moment of silence, he relaxes a little, still rubbing Kise’s hands, his own fingers gentle. As always, his skin is still surprisingly hot against Kise’s, and he presses closer to monopolize it. “Still, I guess you’re right.”

Kise smiles. “Can you believe how far we’ve come, though? When I first met you, you said I had grimy hands.” Kise doesn’t even have to give a pointed look around Aomine’s room for him to understand his implication, he can see the sharp scowl of Aomine’s lips from his position on his shoulder.

“Well, whatever.” Aomine responds, huffing. His voice is still raspy from sleep, snagging over every syllable. “Satsuki always has friends in her station and you looked like such a hooligan.”

“A  _hooligan_?” Kise sputters, laughing even though he desperately wants to maintain a playfully appalled expression. He can’t help it; the word seems so out of place on Aomine’s lips. He leans in and presses his lips to Aomine’s throat, kissing him and chuckling against his skin.

“You wore a fucking  _kitten_  sweater the first time I met you,” Aomine rasps as Kise drags the edge of his teeth against the side of Aomine’s neck.

“You wear those disgusting old man loafers almost every  _day_ ,” Kise retorts, biting slightly against the skin over Aomine’s pulse. Aomine immediately makes a contradictory noise, pulling back to look at Kise in indignation.

“Those loafers are the best things that have ever happened to me!”

Kise hums, smiling but too happy and fired up to actually laugh at the sincerity in Aomine’s tone.

Instead, he whispers, “Let’s work on that.” 

He presses a kiss to the hinge of Aomine’s jaw and tightens his hold around Aomine’s waist. Aomine shivers in his arms, letting his head come to rest against Kise’s once he’s secured his chin on Aomine’s shoulder, both of them pressing against the other before looking back out the window and up at those distant evergreen mountains.

It only takes a moment for Aomine’s entire body to relax in Kise’s hold, for the both of them to rest against each other as comfortably as if they were laying side-by-side, cuddling in-between the sheets. It still amazes Kise, even today, so far along on the path that he and Aomine have travelled together, that so much in his life has turned out so right.

When he’d first met Aomine and had received little to no responses to his flirting, he’d settled in for a long and painful road of unrequited love and pining. He’d come to Seattle thinking and believing that to make any changes to his body was, in his case, the equivalent of ending his hard-won career. He’d stepped inside of a tattoo shop knowing that he wasn’t the typical kind of person that could belong in a place that smelled of ink and sage and orange blossom—in a place where the very air permeated a sense of freedom and autonomy, to do whatever the hell you want, whenever you want.

And yet here he stands, with the love of his life in his arms and humming lightly against him, with two new piercings and a tattoo permanently inscribed into his skin, and a special place inside of The Zone that belongs solely to him, their Golden Boy; the man that walked into their shop and shook up everything they’d ever thought about pretty boys and had somehow, through charm and loyalty and a little something extra, a little something special, earned his place amongst them.

Kise Ryouta works hard for what he loves; he always has and he always will. There are still struggles that lie ahead, times when he’ll have to leave Aomine again for several months at a time, times when he might not get along with Aomine and they’ll have to tell Momoi their sides of the story separately while treating her to coffee, and maybe even public pressure from the paparazzi or Kise’s public persona. There are an invariable number of things that can still go wrong, that probably will go wrong.

But that’s just how life is, isn’t it?

A year ago, Kise isn’t sure that he could’ve taken on the hurdles that life has to throw at him with as much confidence and finesse as he can now. He’s fairly certain that if Momoi hadn’t found him on the side of the road that night and brought him home to The Zone, he would probably still be trying to find himself, breaking down and wondering where his positivity had run away too.

He stands taller now, knows his place in the world and accepts it, finds comfort in knowing that he belongs to a group of people that have accepted him regardless of his looks, his wealth, or his status from the very beginning; that he has someone who wants to hold him every night, regardless of the circumstances, and wants to whisper his secrets deep into the effervescent flow of Kise’s soul for as long as they both live.

And Kise, for the first time in his life, wants to do the same.

He and Aomine have always had a strong physical connection—that much is indisputable. But it’s the way that they have been slowly coming together over this past year, through the highs and the lows, the confusion and the uncertainty, all the way until now, when they’re pressed so close together they might as well be etched into the very makings of one another’s souls, that makes them both recognize that this thing that they have, this love between them? It’s something special.

Kise Ryouta taught Aomine many things; that judging one based on looks is the quickest route to ignorance, that independence can blossom even in an industry poised towards pleasing others, that sometimes love and the many expressions of it are the only true way to make things that have once gone wrong, right again.

Aomine Daiki taught Kise many things, too; that tattoos are more than just an art form but often expressions of one’s energy, that piercings replace a part of you that may have been overlooked for years with something meaningful and personal, that the eyes are truly the windows to a person’s soul.

All this time, Aomine and his passion for art and the way it changes peoples’ lives have been teaching Kise that everything that he had once believed to be cataclysms working to hold him down and pin him in place, are in fact the very mechanisms of liberation he’s never understood before letting Aomine’s needle press into his skin and leave behind the corporeal imprint of something as intangible as a memory.

They still have so much left to learn; about each other, about the world, about the ways in which their love will change them as individuals and as partners. There’s a lot of road left ahead of them, mysterious and thrilling, but if there’s anything in the world that Kise and Aomine can unequivocally agree on about themselves, it’s that they both love a good challenge.

And what challenger has ever been stronger than Time itself?

Kise and Aomine lean against one another and look out at those impossibly regal mountains disappearing into the clouded sky, steady and unshakeable, even by the passage of time, and they smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully, if I've played my cards right, it’s clear that this is a story of perseverance of character, of trusting yourself and your important people, and of learning to accept and, ultimately, love yourself enough to hold on to the things that make you happy. I hope everyone who has experienced this story and these characters written through my lens will leave it happily and with a smile; and hopefully, if you’re still roaming the winding roads of this world feeling a little lost, you can find yourself the way that Kise has found himself in love of self and others. Thank you so, so much for letting me share this story with you. ♥
> 
> 5/26/15: I've finally made a Pinterest board with the various things that inspired me while writing this story! So if you're interested in seeing what helped fuel this beast on, feel free to check it out [here](https://www.pinterest.com/laurenpuggles/ywak-do-not-repin/).


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